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.

    • Shirasho
      42•8 months ago

      The irony being the video game industry is currently one of the most unstable and corrupt industries right now. Video game CEOs are raking in money while the actual creatives are being fired left and right. There is serious brain drain and a mental health crisis is occurring.

      • NeatoEnglish
        30•8 months ago

        Thankfully the video game industry is huge and never been more varied. You can mostly ignore major publishers and still have a great time exploring indie and AA games. It still really sucks for the majority of the game devs but at least for players they have a lot of options if they can be steered away from the gambling of things like mobile games, FIFA and MTX-ridden AAA games.