Psychologists and economists all concurred for decades on one universal principle regarding happiness: it tracks a U-shaped curve. Humans are happy early in life, unhappy at middle age, and happy at old age.
It didn’t matter whether you lived in New York City or rural Africa, whether you brought home a six-figure paycheck or an empty hunting basket, this trajectory showed up everywhere across cultures and economies and even among large apes.
But now, that parabola has flattened out. As revealed by recent research headed by Dartmouth University professor David Blanchflower, teenagers are expressing reduced levels of happiness compared to any previous period.
The finding? A complete about-face compared to what experts previously believed to be an immutable principle of life satisfaction.
The information surprised long-time scholar of trends in happiness, Bryan Blanchflower, who said on this topic the following,
“All of a sudden, we started to actually observe something going on, which was a rapid decline in the well-being of young people – particularly for young women, but the trends for young men were the same,” he said at a recent lecture.
The research indicates fulfillment is now at its peak during young adulthood, and older age ranges are registering higher satisfaction levels. Rather than young adults “having the best years of their lives,” it is now those least happy.
The U-Curve Bends and Ends
The U-shaped happiness curve was not only a theoretical notion, but it was one of the most replicated findings ever observed in social science. In North America and Africa, and in poor and affluent countries, data revealed middle age to be the trough for well-being.
The pattern was noted by Blanchflower himself in 145 nations and all 35 OECD member countries. Even research with chimpanzees and orangutans indicated similar trends.
The U-curve appeared biological, hardwired to humanity. By 2017, all this was reversing itself. “Now young adults are least happy,” said Blanchflower. “Unhappiness now decreases with age, and happiness now increases with age.”
The transformation has been sharp enough to observe at present the trajectory of felicity as a steady ascent and not curving upward later in life. It starts at its minimum at an early age.
A Disturbing Picture
The statistics behind this trend are chilling. In America, roughly one out of nine young female respondents now says each and every day is a bad day for their mental health.
For young men, it’s roughly one out of 14. That distress manifests itself elsewhere as well: increased hospitalization for self-harm, broader utilization of mental health services, and greater numbers of attempted suicides.
Even more distressing is that this is not some exotic American phenomenon. The same shift has been documented in more than 80 countries, all the way from Zimbabwe to Australia.
In 43 countries where Blanchflower has examined data intensely, the pattern is identical and consistent.
“This is kind of scary,” he said. “We should have been doing something about this years ago.”
Searching for Solutions
If this intergenerational happiness collapse is not occurring uniquely in the United States, why is it occurring at all? Blanchflower and colleagues have sought answers and eliminated some typical suspects.
It is not the pandemic, though COVID-19 clearly did not help. The decline in teenage wellbeing started much earlier, from 2011, and accelerated after 2014. It is neither the labor market, since youth gloominess increased while the job rate improved.
“What you need here is something that starts around 2014 or so, is global and disproportionately impacts the young, especially young women,”
said Blanchflower in a Scientific American interview. “Anybody that comes up with an explanation has got to have something that fits that.”
Otherwise, there is only one reason he can think of – technology. “Other than cell phones, I don’t have anything,” he conceded.
The Smartphone Question
Blanchflower is hardly unique in noting the emergence of smartphone technology and social media as potential perpetrators. At roughly the same moment when teenage happiness first fell off a cliff, smartphone adoption became virtually ubiquitous.
Social media like Instagram and Snapchat, and later TikTok, zoomed to prominence and transformed young people’s modes of communicating, comparing themselves to others, and receiving information.
Critics argue that these technologies have created a constant cycle of comparison, exposure to harmful content, and disrupted sleep patterns, all factors tied to poor mental health. While it’s difficult to prove causation, the timeline is striking.
A Global Wake-Up Call
Whatever the cause is with smartphones, the data is conclusive. Young adults are struggling at historic proportions, and the once-held belief that midlife gets tougher only doesn’t apply anymore. Youth has become the most difficult period instead.
Experts warn that neglecting them can have long-term consequences, individually and at societal levels. The young adults today will comprise the workforce, leaders, and parents tomorrow.
The erosion of their happiness can have aftershocks through politics, economics, and culture, and we are only beginning to realize its breadth.
“This is a universal problem,” said Blanchflower. “It’s not only one nation, only one culture. We have to treat it with gravity.”
The Bottom Line
For years, we comforted ourselves with the belief that life’s straits reached their height at midlife and diminished with subsequent years. That comfort can now belong to history. The toughest years, emotionally and psychologically, might now arrive at a much earlier age.
The U-curve, once believed to be an iron rule of man’s existence, has flattened into something else: a global scenario in which teenagers are least happy, and elderly persons surprisingly come out happier.
Whatever has caused this is unclear, but we can be sure of one thing: unless we discover fast answers, tomorrow will likely be darker than it is today.
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