My mother texted me that a city in her state (where my adolescence occurred) was named Nth happiest in the USA. I could have responded saying that people have varying priorities in determining happiness. Instead, I just sent a thumbs-up. Happiness was impossible for me in that state (conservative, religious, etc). I love life and love myself where I am now, plus with years of therapy.

Anyway, that’s my rambling response.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The 2024 World Happiness Report also showed a disturbing downward trend in life evaluations by young people and adolescents, particularly in Western Europe.

Compiled by using data from more than 140 countries, the report is published annually by Gallup, the United Nations, and the University of Oxford.

The annual World Happiness Report rankings are largely based on subjective life evaluations compiled over the past three years from the Gallup World Poll in cooperation with the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

New entrants include Costa Rica and Kuwait at positions 12 and 13 respectively, while the United States and Germany were both dislodged from 15th and 16th spots, dropping to 23 and 24 this year.

Also noticeable this year was the narrowing of happiness levels between Western and Eastern Europe, with countries like Czechia (18) and Lithuania (19) retaining their spots in the top 20, with Slovenia now in 21st position.

Therefore, events like the Hamas attacks on Israeli kibbutzim on October 7 and the subsequent war in Gaza would have gone largely unregistered, which explains why Israel (which placed fourth last year) remains high in the rankings in fifth position.

The original article contains 915 words, the summary contains 198 words. Saved 78%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

https://youtu.be/8yHPvMA1BNE?si=_-nLpr4jHC_aBra8