Report finds falling happiness among youth of North America and western Europe, but rise in sub-Saharan Africa and eastern Europe

Young people are becoming less happy than older generations as they suffer “the equivalent of a midlife crisis”, global research has revealed as America’s top doctor warned that “young people are really struggling”.

Dr Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, said allowing children to use social media was like giving them medicine that is not proven to be safe. He said the failure of governments to better regulate social media in recent years was “insane”.

Murthy spoke to the Guardian as new data revealed that young people across North America were now less happy than their elders, with the same “historic” shift expected to follow in western Europe.

Declining wellbeing among under-30s has driven the US out of the top 20 list of happiest nations, the 2024 World Happiness Report revealed.

  • @dogslayeggs
    10•9 months ago

    Cost of living is so much worse now than in 2010s. Housing and food prices have doubled, but salaries have not doubled in 10 years. I couldn’t come close to affording now the house I bought in 2012. Health care costs are actually rising lower than inflation, as is total healthcare spending. Christofascists and Nazis have been around forever, but in the early to mid 2010s we didn’t have one as President of the US who actively encouraged them to come of hiding and boldly advertise their hatred.

    Social Media and 24 hours news channels bring to light the issues facing us in the world today, but people wouldn’t feel so bad if they felt a comfortable future was at least attainable. “Yeah, the world might suck but at least I should be able to afford a moderately nice house and car once I’ve paid my dues at work in 10 years.” Versus, “shit, it sucks now and will probably suck even more in 10 years.”

    • @[email protected]
      2•9 months ago

      Cost of living is so much worse now than in 2010s

      Yeah, that’s what I was saying. Everything went crazy during the pandemic and never got close to recovering.

      I’ve seen the argument made that Trump became president in a big part due to social media. He grew his cult following thanks to Twitter while Obama was president. So the problems caused by Trump could also be tied back to social media.

      • @grueEnglish
        2•9 months ago

        [Cost of] Everything went crazy during the pandemic and never got close to recovering.

        It continues to piss me off that the pandemic effectively let Trump off the hook for the economy he had already fucked up with his 2017 tax handout to the rich and 2018 trade war with China. He had already been badgering the Fed to lower interest rates to stave off a recession in 2019, before COVID showed up. In fact, the erosion of the interest rate in 2019, and therefore the capacity for quantitative easing, is yet another way Trump’s incompetent and vindictive policies made the pandemic even worse than it would’ve been otherwise.

        • @[email protected]
          1•9 months ago

          Wouldn’t doubt that one bit. I live in Canada, and while the Conservative party is often presented as “good for the economy”, objectively, they’re no better than the Liberals here.

          • @grueEnglish
            2•9 months ago

            the Conservative party is often presented as “good for the economy”, objectively, they’re no better than the Liberals here.

            I don’t know about Canada (I assume it’s the same), but here in the US the conservative is objectively worse for the economy every damn time. The Republicans have been running a “two Santa Clauses” con for decades.

            • @[email protected]
              2•9 months ago

              It’s mostly the same.

              Federally, the Conservatives are worse for the economy than the Liberals. The NDP (the left wing party) has never held office at the federal level.

              Provincially (“state”-level), the NDP are the best, and the Liberals are worse than the Conservatives…but it does get muddied up a bit because in one province, the Liberals in name are basically the Conservatives, and the NDP fill the Liberal niche. Or something. I’m not from that province.

              I do know that our Conservatives love starving the beast, and by the time the Liberals (or NDP) get back in power, there is a LOT of shit to clean up.

              For example, our Conservative-run province spent millions of dollars to suppress and freeze nurse wages leading to a shortage of nurses. While spending those millions to suppress their wages, the solution to the nursing shortage has been to pay nursing agencies more than 3x the cost per nurse (middleman needs their cut!).

              So we are paying money to pay nurses less, while simultaneously paying more for nurses.

              It was found by the courts to be illegal to suppress the wages, and the government was ordered to back pay nurses (plus a bunch of other public sector workers). The government appealed that decision multiple times (paying court fees and such all the while), and eventually lost and had to pay out billions in backwages.

              But we’re still paying extra for the nursing agencies!