Summary
A UN-commissioned study finds that youth happiness has declined sharply over the past decade in English-speaking countries.
Traditionally, happiness followed a U-shape, with youth being a peak period, but it now increases with age instead.
Researchers link this shift to social media, cyberbullying, and reduced social interaction.
The mental health crisis may have significant consequences that affect education, workforce participation, and productivity. The UN is investigating whether this trend is a global phenomenon.
youth is no longer one of the happiest times
Which has always had the strong whiff of bullshit marketing imposed by patronizing adults, trying to force a square peg into the round hole.
Like the guy said at the end of the '93 comedy film Dazed & Confused - “If I ever start referring to these as the happiest days of my life, remind me to kill myself”, and he was the cool, open-minded star athlete, the one best equipped to have a good time in his youth.
That’s because we base “happiness” upon the amount of responsibilities and clearly the most amount of it(adulthood) is going to make you unhappy. So this is basically just answering the question of are we exploiting people and ruining society?
There are several studies that verified the u shape until this generation.
After high school graduation, young adults could afford college or an ok quality of life job. It wouldn’t be great, but it would be ok enough along with no responsibilities. You also had media presenting a relatively obtainable quality of life, so there wasn’t a large hedonism treadmill.
Those kinds of economic conditions aren’t around anymore.
I enjoyed my youth… Is it that unusual?
I’d wager that for most western kids no, not at all.
This is why we need to continue to relax our child labor laws. The youth will be happiest when they can have a steady job in the mines, again.
(This is sarcasm.)
The issue is that we’ve replaced Minecraft with TikTok. The children yearn for the mines.
A few years ago a right-wing friend was loudly advocating for elimination of child labor laws because “all kids are doing these days is playing video games.” (He’d be maga now.) When I pointed out that would mean children being forced into hazardous jobs - working with restaurant knives and machines or in industrial settings he responded, “That would never be a problem. Insurance companies would never allow it.”
About 25% of the nation would have no problem with kids being forced to work in dangerous conditions and being maimed for life as a result. Just as long it was someone else’s kid.
The biggest lie I was ever told was “these are the best years of your life” growing up, and frankly that made me want to end it all. Things have ONLY been uphill since the end of high school.
Kids and teenagers especially are all awful creatures. School showed me that, then six years in the pet industry watching how they behave around animals solidified it for me.
Those of us raised by narcissists didn’t have a “curve”. It’s been a flat line my entire life. /traumaDump
For what reason could a child in 2025 be upset?
Maybe it’s the dying world? The dying society? Our dying economy? Our dying species?
We are seriously fucking up by not executing the rich before they guarentee the collapse of our support systems, and the extinction of our species and all large animal life on earth.
I don’t know if it’s the wording used here or the actual study itself, but this all just seems wrong somehow. Like I’m not arguing against the fact that everything is completely fucked everywhere at the moment, and that obviously hits the youth hardest. But the way this is framed is just kinda stupid I feel.
“Traditionally, happiness followed a U-shape, with youth being a peak period, but it now increases with age instead.” Has this claim ever really held water? And according to which tradition exactly? Also define “youth”.
“Researchers link this shift to social media, cyberbullying, and reduced social interaction.” ah yes, it’s those pesky Iphones again! Thankfully it’s not, for an example, the actual algorithms themselves in use at said social media, or the reluctance from the profiteers (of the widespread unhappiness of youth) to actually change these algorithms in order to protect the in cases extremely young user base of these, despite constant promises to do so, take Meta and Zuck’s talks for an example. But then again, fascists do what fascists do, so straight up lying from these kinds of people shouldn’t really be surprising anymore to anyone.
Or could it be that no-one knows how to deal with feeling bad? I, personally, started feeling bad when I was around 15 or 16 years of age, and it didn’t really stop until some 3 years ago finally. So roughly about 15 years went by. There are many reasons why I started feeling bad, and kept on feeling bad for so long, but from what I’ve gathered from these years is that parents in general are left too much on their own devices to give their children the tools with which to deal with strong (negative) emotions, literally what to do when you feel bad. I eventually found help through a certain kind of behavioral therapy, because the extent to which my strong emotions affected and had affected my behavior and actions was basically what kept on fueling my bad feelings and general inability to live (and also large sums and amounts of prescribed antidepressant, anti-psychotic and sedative medications, all of which did fuck-all towards improving the quality of my life by themselves. Only with therapy, which was difficult and expensive to find and acquire access to).
There are parts in this fork of therapy, especially in the topic of emotional regulation skills, that could and should be integrated into the strategy of general upbringing pretty much everywhere. The parents should know how to bring up their kids to have the ability to learn more about these skills (and their importance to life in general) especially coming into teenage, which is a tumultuous time emotionally and behaviorally for everyone I think.
So, a revamping of upbringing seems to be in order, but what’s stopping us? Oh yes, what causes every evil in this world: money, or lack thereof.
“[This] may have significant consequences that affect education, workforce participation, and productivity”, oh no, not the productivity! WON’T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE SHAREHOLDERS! Never mind the kids, but think of all the fat stacks they are losing due to their wage-slaves not feeling good in a world controlled by capitalism! Whatever shall we do? Well what do we always do? Start a few new wars or something, that should distract them for a while, while simultaneously culling enough people to make it seem like the standard of living has increased. That should buy a few decades or even centuries to make more money.
Fucking hell.
I am with you. I also have suffered from mental health issues most (if not all) of my life. I also have been medicated for many years and nothing helped much at all, besides ketamine which provided relief of symptoms (primarily trauma related stuff but also depression) as well as a feeling of safety during and after the infusions, and later getting off some of the meds and taking my health into my own hands by using communication skills to advocate better for myself with providers and informing myself on treatment options and my conditions, which has lead to a huge increase in self esteem and mood and effectiveness at reaching goals and living by my values, and allowed me to make better choices and I feel like it’s all making an incredibly positive change in my life in so many ways and that allows me to do what I’ve always wanted which is to be able to be there for others in a meaningful way.
If anyone reading this has any questions about my experience or what steps can be taken to make changes and/or wants resources for or support with working on any of this, feel free to reach out. If you are willing to communicate in good faith, I am willing to hear you out when I am able to.
Edit: also yeah this is fucking saddening and confusing and most of all enraging that this is being done to us in all the ways you mentioned and more. At this point I struggle to see how it isn’t unethical to bring life into this world, and do not have any plans to do so, and take steps to prevent that from happening as a result of my actions. If I ever was ready to be a parent I would foster or adopt and treat them better than anybody treated me growing up; a huge goal of mine is to reduce and end the perpetuation of harm as much as possible in this fucked up system we live in (or preferably a newer, better one).
I, too, have found help with ketamine! Though the way you phrase it (“infusions”) leads me to believe that my experience of snorting it straight into my nasal cavities with a rolled up fiver off a kinda nasty looking plate is somewhat dissimilar to yours. And yet one of the few times I used some better quality ket without having at least four different substances in my bloodstream at the same time (a royal flush one might say) was one that really opened my eyes to what was going on in my life at the time, and how to solve it; at that moment I was in a codependent, emotionally manipulative and abusive, and yet platonic relationship with a narcissist, which is somewhat of a classic power dynamic with many other borderlines. Also what was needed was to cut her off completely from my life, in which I added a deep resentment towards her so that if I ever catch myself feeling any kind of empathy towards her I can force myself to stop it.
Not sure what to say exactly other than that I hope you are doing better now and also to recommend you employ basic harm reduction techniques, feel free to reach out if you have any questions about that. Best wishes.
Oh thank you for your offer and general empathy towards me, who is but a stranger in a strange land, but you needn’t worry about me.
In fact, it has been over a year since I’ve last talked with this narcissist, though she did reach out to me sometime last year - again despite what I had asked and what we had agreed upon previously, so nothing new there - and, after some careful consideration, I did reply to her. I don’t think I’ve berated anyone in my life before quite like that. I channeled every bit of rage and resentment I had towards her and the constant disappointments she had caused to me and everyone else around her, basically hoping she would die or at the least move far away so no-one of my friends would be available for her to abuse, after which I blocked her again.
Also soon after 2024 started I started seeing this lovely autistic girl, who I have come to love dearly and who loves me back. And she loves me the same way I love her, so it is easier for me to trust this love, which is a completely new experience for me. We are in a steady and I dare say committed relationship.
And if it’s the drugs you are worried about, well… I’ve been addicted before, some years ago, to abusing alcohol and benzodiazepines specifically. Nowadays I rarely drink anymore, at least in the same way as before, and benzos I’ve dropped completely. I do occasionally dabble in some illicit narcotics, but I don’t think of or see it as a problem. Mainly because I’ve seen and know what it looks like to have a substance abuse problem, and I strive to not let it go there.
In any case, thank you again for your offer (:
Good, it sounds like you are making healthier choices which is always good, not just by preventing potential harm from drug mixing but also by setting and maintaining boundaries and choosing to associate with folks whose values are more in line with yours and who appreciate you genuinely. I would encourage you to continue making choices that support your wellbeing and sustainability of practices, hopefully you don’t mind me saying so.
Thank you, you are a beautiful person by what I can tell. And yes, these are skills that I have had to learn the hard way, and I have worked hard to learn them. I am also working part-time as a bartender nowadays, which is something I thought to be completely impossible for me - in addition to having a stable relationship and cutting off toxic people and relationships - not more than 5 years ago. So things are and have been looking up for a while now. And no I don’t mind you saying at all, and in fact if you ever have anything that you think I might be able to help you with, please don’t hesitate reaching out.
Thank you so much. Same to you, I’m here for support or whatever helpful resources I am able to offer.
which is something I thought to be completely impossible for me - in addition to having a stable relationship and cutting off toxic people and relationships - not more than 5 years ago.
I relate to this a lot BTW. I am currently digging myself out of the hole I was born in and proceeded to dig even deeper for many years, and the progress I’m making is finally more measurable, visible, and helpful to others, in a way that feels very validating and confirms to me that while I may make mistakes and even cause harm at times, I am on the right path and I am doing what I’ve always wanted to by being there for others (and myself) and minimizing harm while maximizing benefit in my interactions with anyone and also with anything else that I exert influence on in any way, such as systems or processes that affect others or communities, IRL or digital (like this one). I am doing things that felt truly impossible or even incomprehensible in the past, including living to my current age. Keep up the self improvement work, it’s working!! Your hard work is paying off and I appreciate you.
This is so fucking disgusting to me, that this has been done to us, that youth and joy have been corrupted and siphoned off and manipulated and taken from us.
Well strap in because adulthood sucks too.
Good news for us that are getting older, I guess?
Puberty is already a hard time for most people. Add to that that nowadays this is also the time the youth becomes acutely aware of the state of things worldwide or at least state-wide, no wonder they get depressed.
“Yeah, you’ll have to work until you die and the planet will probably be in flames by the time you reach middle age with hundreds of millions of climate refugees overrunning what’s left of society at that point, but hey - Tiktok!”
Traditionally, happiness followed a U-shape
Example:
- Happy 🙂 mouth makes U shape
- Unhappy ☹️ mouth makes ⋂ shape
Well, living standards are falling, there are significantly more wars again, fascists are on the rise everywhere, social media is full of hate and misinformation, climate change is progressing and not only are there no serious efforts against it, but climate activists are treated like terrorists…all in all: is that really surprising?
if its increasing with age then all the study shows is a rise in delusion.
It is likely increasing with age because young adulthood is so shitty now.
agree. i hate it here. I picked a bad time to start on my own, huge fumble lol
For people who want data and the paper, it looks like this paper was compiled from a lot of different sources and seems pretty reputable, my only concern is the lower sample size for some of the newer surveys from recent years on just some of the data, but the trend does seem believable considering the older data from the 70s/80s was already showing the trend.
It really seems like it’s not as much fun being a kid anymore, imo it’s kind of a cop out to blame social media when it’s the stuff they learn about the world through social media that makes them depressed. But if kids are getting depressed about our reality then reality has to get better for them to get better.
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w33490/w33490.pdf
My experience has definitely been a bit of a squiggly line, but I think I’m probably an outlier.
