What’s Happening with Happiness?
Most of us have read at least some of the dreadful statistics about happiness declines in America and the world. Whether you keep up on the annual World Happiness Report or simply scan any of articles published each week about our national mental health crisis, loneliness epidemic, increases in depression, stress and fatigue — you are bound to have been made aware that happiness has fallen off a cliff over the past decade. And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down.
Especially concerning is the unhappiness of adolescents and young adults.
According to the World Happiness Report, “Happiness and life satisfaction among United States adolescents, which increased between 1991 and 2011, suddenly declined after 2012. Thus, by 2016-17, both adults and adolescents were reporting significantly less happiness than they had in the 2000s.” The resulting indicators of decreased psychological well being, including low self-esteem, suicidal rumination and self harm, are all increasing among adolescents.
Adolescents should be the future of our American dream, but instead seem to be caught in an American nightmare. While many factors are playing a role in the decline in happiness among adolescents … it cannot be denied that digital screen time on mobile devices (primarily, but not exclusively, immersed in social media) is perhaps the leading factor. Since 2012 when smart phones reached critical mass in the USA, digital immersion has steadily increased. By 2018, 95% of United States adolescents had access to a smartphone, and 45% said they were online “almost constantly” according to a study by Anderson & Jiang. The situation is particularly dire for girls with data showing girls who spend 5 or more hours a day on social media are 3 times more likely to be depressed than non-users.
As you might expect, the consequences of a joyless youth culture in America are dire; most sources put these challenges at the top of their lists:
Mental health: Unhappiness in youth can lead to increased rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders with corresponding increases in national healthcare costs.
Physical health: People who are unhappy are more likely to engage in unhealthy behaviors, such as smoking, overeating, and not exercising. This can lead to a range of physical health problems, such as obesity, heart disease, and diabetes.
Academic: Unhappy youth are less likely to do well in school and are more likely to drop out of school. This can limit their future educational and career opportunities.
Substance abuse: Unhappy youth are more likely to engage in risky behaviors, such as alcohol and drug abuse, which can have a range of negative consequences, including addiction, overdose, and legal problems.
Social isolation: Unhappy youth are less likely to have close relationships and are more likely to feel isolated. This can further compound feelings of unhappiness and lead to a range of negative outcomes, including depression and anxiety and a greater propensity for radicalization by extremist groups and ideologies.
Low engagement in civic activities: Youth unhappiness also linked with low engagement in civic activities, low voting turnout, low interest in politics and low participation in community service.
The chart above from the World Happiness Report summarizes this dramatic problem succinctly. America’s youth have given up EVERYTHING to spend more and more time online. How quickly we as a society accept this problem and look deeper into the causes, will determine whether or not we can act in time to correct it.