Speaker 1: Pushkin. When the team behind the annual World Happiness Report
Speaker 1: finds that Finns are happier than Danes, or that Canadians
Speaker 1: are happier than Americans, those broad results hide a ton
Speaker 1: of nuance. We've been unpacking some of the reports more
Speaker 1: interesting details in our last few episodes, but today we're
Speaker 1: going to tackle one of the most striking findings in
Speaker 1: this year's report. What's been happening to young people's happiness
Speaker 1: over the last few years. And the picture is pretty complicated.
Speaker 1: The good news is that youth happiness has been rising
Speaker 1: in certain parts of the world. But the bad news
Speaker 1: is that some of the wealthy nations out there have
Speaker 1: seen worrying declines, and that includes the young people where
Speaker 1: I live in North America. But the big question is
Speaker 1: why and what can be done to halt this awful slide.
Speaker 1: If anyone can help us figure it all out, it's
Speaker 1: Yon Emmanuel Denev Hey Lauri.
Speaker 2: I'm a professor of economics and behavioral science at the
Speaker 2: University of Oxford, where I also lead the Wellbeing Research Center.
Speaker 1: He's also one of the co authors of the World
Speaker 1: Happiness Report and the lead author of the chapter that
Speaker 1: focused specifically on gen Z.
Speaker 2: This year's report, we focus in on the age categories,
Speaker 2: and my team and I we've really worked hard on
Speaker 2: childhoodlessoned well being and so the way we define child
Speaker 2: and adlesson it is up for debate, but we've essentially
Speaker 2: put it as between ten and twenty four, so late adolescence,
Speaker 2: because there's still some neurological development happening at these later
Speaker 2: stages of late adolescents. And so it also was convenient
Speaker 2: because that's where the data sort of starts. The earliest
Speaker 2: subjective wellbeing data starts around age ten thanks to the
Speaker 2: Children's World's data set, and then we do have the
Speaker 2: Gallop whirldpoll and that runs from about fifteen years of
Speaker 2: age all the way to twenty four. So it was
Speaker 2: also a convenient to some extent to make sure that
Speaker 2: we have these age cutoffs.
Speaker 1: And so usually the World Happiness Report is often focused
Speaker 1: on adult well being. Why is it important to look
Speaker 1: at well being in children and adolescents?
Speaker 2: Oh, I was absolutely adamant on the editorial board to
Speaker 2: start thinking more seriously about child adlesson well being is,
Speaker 2: as you say, the world happen and support which does
Speaker 2: the World's rankings of what the happiest populations are, but
Speaker 2: they were really eighteen plus and so at some point,
Speaker 2: and we obviously all knew with COVID putting a spotlight
Speaker 2: on child mental health that we had to take child
Speaker 2: and ad last and wellbeing way more seriously. But there's
Speaker 2: always been a lack of data, and the Gallobral Pole,
Speaker 2: our workhorse, if you will, for the rankings only starts
Speaker 2: really from late adolescens onwards. So it was a massive effort,
Speaker 2: and we waited in a way for the PISA data.
Speaker 2: The OECD releases the PISA data, but that only happens
Speaker 2: once every four years or so, and so that combined
Speaker 2: with two other data sets, Children's Worlds and HPSC, allowed
Speaker 2: us to start piecing together the global map of child
Speaker 2: and a lesson and Wellbeing. But to your question of
Speaker 2: why it matters, child and lesson and well being matters
Speaker 2: so much because it's the best predictor of how you
Speaker 2: will be doing as an adult d and so mental
Speaker 2: health as a child or and as an adolescent is
Speaker 2: the best predictor of life outcomes and quality of life
Speaker 2: for life satisfaction as an adult. And one particular study
Speaker 2: that I care much about not just because I'm a
Speaker 2: quothor on it. It's about ten years ago and the
Speaker 2: Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences, Andrew Roswell and I
Speaker 2: published a paper where we show that adolescent well being
Speaker 2: and we were able to get data from the American
Speaker 2: National Lujournal Study of Adolescent Health, and we found that
Speaker 2: at different ages around adolescents, their well being at those
Speaker 2: ages was most predictive of the same individual's earnings as
Speaker 2: they were growing up. What we found is that ages
Speaker 2: I think twelve, fifteen, nineteen and twenty one. It's a
Speaker 2: panel study, so it's the same fifteen thousand American youth
Speaker 2: that have been tracked over time. This was started in
Speaker 2: the early nineties and they continued to be followed with
Speaker 2: surveys all the way into their thirties. So we have
Speaker 2: what their well being when they're adolescents, and we have
Speaker 2: their sort of adult outcomes, including how much they're earning
Speaker 2: age thirty and above. And what we found was that
Speaker 2: their levels of well being adolescents was a massive predictor
Speaker 2: of how they would be doing later in life, even
Speaker 2: as measures through their earnings. Now one could say, well,
Speaker 2: maybe it's because happy or from richer families and socio
Speaker 2: economic status is higher for these youngsters, but we were
Speaker 2: able to control for that in a nifty way, if
Speaker 2: I may say so, which is in that sample of
Speaker 2: American youth of about fifteen thousand, they were about three thousand siblings.
Speaker 2: So what we did is introduce what we call sibling
Speaker 2: fixed effects or family fixed effects, where we would start
Speaker 2: looking at the differences between the siblings well being and
Speaker 2: seeing how explanatory that is of the differences in the
Speaker 2: future earnings of these siblings. So, say, Laura, you and
Speaker 2: I are sister and brother, not unfeasible, and we would
Speaker 2: be looking at your well being, my well being, looking
Speaker 2: at the differences between them, and then see whether that
Speaker 2: can explain differences in our later earnings and labor market outcomes,
Speaker 2: if you will, when we're thirty and above and low
Speaker 2: and behold it did.
Speaker 1: And so it's kind of like, if you know, if
Speaker 1: you and I were brother and sister, but I was
Speaker 1: less happy, maybe I was more depressed, even though we
Speaker 1: grew up in the same house, probably went to the
Speaker 1: same schools and so on, I'd be less happy as
Speaker 1: an adult and I'd be earning less as an adult.
Speaker 2: Too precisely, and it's quite significant. So this is all data,
Speaker 2: but it was thousands of already back in those days
Speaker 2: when the study was run.
Speaker 1: So we really need to understand like kid mental health,
Speaker 1: because it's having these important predicted outcomes. But my understanding
Speaker 1: was always that the story was that overall kids tended
Speaker 1: to be happier than adults. So walk me through the
Speaker 1: kind of typical patterns like happiness. Researchers have seen it
Speaker 1: about what happens to age across the life course. What
Speaker 1: we kind of used to think happened.
Speaker 2: Well typically and we still find it mostly to be
Speaker 2: the case around the world. Is what you will know
Speaker 2: better than anyone else is the U shape relationship between
Speaker 2: age and well being. So essentially we start at quite
Speaker 2: high in terms of our well being. We're happy as kids,
Speaker 2: We're happy happy as we can be as kids, and
Speaker 2: in fact then the report this to me was insight
Speaker 2: for me, is just how happy kids really are. So
Speaker 2: if you look at the earliest ages that we have
Speaker 2: data for in life satisfaction, they start like at nine
Speaker 2: out of ten as an average in some countries in
Speaker 2: terms of life satisfaction. So we start really happy, and
Speaker 2: then we slide down the U curve towards the midlife crisis,
Speaker 2: which typically late thirties early forties, with the pressures of
Speaker 2: life coming through, mortgage to be paid off, small kids
Speaker 2: to be dealing with, and the prime of your careers
Speaker 2: and the pressures of that, and then you sort of
Speaker 2: like things brighten up again.
Speaker 3: Kids leave.
Speaker 2: You have the benefit of having kids, but without the
Speaker 2: negativity around having to deal with it day in day out.
Speaker 2: Your expectations become more realistic and you start climbing up
Speaker 2: the other side of the U shape between age and
Speaker 2: well being that has broken down in certain societies. So
Speaker 2: the big insight coming through in this year's World Happy
Speaker 2: Sport with a focus on age is that in North America,
Speaker 2: the US in particular, needless to say, and to a
Speaker 2: lasser extent in Western Europe and Britain, you find that
Speaker 2: the first element of the U shape is no longer there.
Speaker 2: It's completely flattened, and in the US it's even reversed.
Speaker 2: Where youth in this case is below thirty or below
Speaker 2: twenty five, depending on which data set you look at,
Speaker 2: they start lower in terms of their self rated quality
Speaker 2: of life, their well being lower than the adults and
Speaker 2: that's really disconcerting, and that trend has started what is
Speaker 2: it ten to fifteen years ago, but sort of in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, it's sort of flipped where you see that
Speaker 2: the youngsters in America below twenty five in this case
Speaker 2: are less happy than the adults.
Speaker 3: That's nowhere else to be seen.
Speaker 1: And this is something that really affected me a lot.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: This is one of the reasons that I started my
Speaker 1: happiness class at Yale is that, you know, I was
Speaker 1: looking at college students who I remember back when I
Speaker 1: was in college in the nineties. I remember them being
Speaker 1: they weren't happy all the time, but not the rates
Speaker 1: of depression and anxiety that we're seeing in our current students,
Speaker 1: and I just felt like there was an enormous shift there.
Speaker 1: It sounds like, at least with the North American data
Speaker 1: that's being born out and the report.
Speaker 2: Absolutely so what your famous experience there is born out
Speaker 2: in the data has never seen before in this way,
Speaker 2: and that trend that you picked up way back when
Speaker 2: you launched your famous class has continued and actually exacerbated
Speaker 2: during COVID that hasn't recovered since either for the first
Speaker 2: time in the world happening support We've done this test
Speaker 2: to see if you were to split the population youth, older,
Speaker 2: and everyone in between. If you were to do a
Speaker 2: ranking just on youth populations around the world, the US
Speaker 2: would drop to sixty third.
Speaker 3: Sixty third, sixty third.
Speaker 1: We're usually in the top twenty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually like in the top end of the top
Speaker 2: twenty normally is the population as a whole. But because
Speaker 2: of youth falling off a cliff in terms of their
Speaker 2: well being, the general population in the US has now
Speaker 2: dropped from i think place fifteen to place twenty third,
Speaker 2: and that's wholly driven by youth not reporting their life's
Speaker 2: going well.
Speaker 1: And the problem is, it's probably not just the youth
Speaker 1: of today, right, given what we talked about earlier, where
Speaker 1: youth mental health is actually predicting something about what those
Speaker 1: young people are going to be experiencing later on. Not
Speaker 1: investing in the youth of today being sixty third means
Speaker 1: or likely to be sixty third, you know, into adulthood
Speaker 1: and into many decades to come.
Speaker 3: That is absolutely true.
Speaker 2: So not only is there an urgent need to do
Speaker 2: something because you can, but also because you have to, because,
Speaker 2: as you say, the predictive power of child and adolescent
Speaker 2: wellbeing and mental health will track throughout people's life course,
Speaker 2: and that doesn't bode well for the future.
Speaker 1: So I think one of the big puzzles though, is that, yes,
Speaker 1: this is the trend that we're seeing in North America,
Speaker 1: this is the kind of thing that I saw in
Speaker 1: my college students in the US. But my understanding is
Speaker 1: this doesn't seem to be the trend that we're seeing
Speaker 1: around the world.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So this is one of the other big insights
Speaker 2: coming out from the World Happiness Support and where really
Speaker 2: put the word world into the World Happening Support because
Speaker 2: of this is we piece data together from the global South,
Speaker 2: for example, and unlike North America and Western Europe, to
Speaker 2: some extent, you find in places like Sub Saharan Africa
Speaker 2: you find that youth has actually increased their self rate
Speaker 2: a well being, so they find that the culity lives
Speaker 2: is higher these days than it was before. And that's
Speaker 2: in a way good news. It shows that this is
Speaker 2: not a universal thing. It shows that this can be
Speaker 2: reversed as a negative trend in North America and the
Speaker 2: US in particular, and I think that's really important to
Speaker 2: understand that globally there are massive regional differences.
Speaker 1: And so talk about what could be causing these differences,
Speaker 1: because this isn't just kind of, you know, a subtle pattern,
Speaker 1: like we're just seeing these extreme differences in how unhappy
Speaker 1: North America and to some extent Australia and New Zealand
Speaker 1: teens are, but how much happier you know, folks are
Speaker 1: in the global South and even in in Europe. So like,
Speaker 1: what's going wrong in North America?
Speaker 2: Well, before we dig into North America, I think the
Speaker 2: reason why you have sort of a convergence really it's
Speaker 2: not like youth in Sub Sahara, Africa is happier than
Speaker 2: youth in say Belgium where I'm from, or the United Kingdom.
Speaker 2: It's that they're sort of catching up and Western Europe
Speaker 2: and North America coming down. So there's, if you will,
Speaker 2: a global convergence to some extent, and we've got an
Speaker 2: amazing figure in the World Happen Sport Chapter three that
Speaker 2: kind of where you see that quite clearly, we see
Speaker 2: North America, Western Europe come down, Central Eastern Europe come up,
Speaker 2: sub so Aheran Africa come up, and some regions in
Speaker 2: Asia come up as well. And I think that global
Speaker 2: convergence is probably a result of the global inequalities reducing.
Speaker 2: So we always talk about inequality rising, and that's certainly
Speaker 2: the case within countries and especially in North America and
Speaker 2: Western Europe and Australia New Zealand, but globally you see
Speaker 2: actually a reduction between countries in wealth and income, and
Speaker 2: I think that's partially also behind this convergence that we
Speaker 2: see in well being and in youth well being in particular.
Speaker 1: So in some ways it's awesome that the youth of
Speaker 1: these parts of the world are kind of getting happier
Speaker 1: over time, But when we look at North America, what
Speaker 1: factors are causing you know, North American kids and kids
Speaker 1: in Australia and New Zealand to feel so unhappy these days.
Speaker 2: So I don't think there's one smoking gun, if you will,
Speaker 2: that you can point to, but there's a lot going
Speaker 2: on that it's not going in the right direction. And
Speaker 2: so we can point to the inequalities within society in
Speaker 2: the United States, for example, rising, which then obviously have
Speaker 2: to downstream consequence on people's mental health and wellbeing and
Speaker 2: opportunities for youth from less privileged backgrounds. We can talk
Speaker 2: about polarization, politics teering people apart, social fabric being in
Speaker 2: the US being torn apart, communities being torn apart, within families,
Speaker 2: youth and older generations, or between youth, brothers and sisters,
Speaker 2: those discussions falling apart, and then I think there's no
Speaker 2: way around that. We also need to look at technology.
Speaker 2: You kind of get around the fact also that the
Speaker 2: slide in youth well being coincience with the coming up
Speaker 2: of social media and how people use social media, so
Speaker 2: that can have positives and negatives, but if people use
Speaker 2: it passively, people who are young and vulnerable, and what
Speaker 2: they use in terms of social media and for how long.
Speaker 2: And so we had the privilege of speaking with Vec
Speaker 2: Murphy the USR surge in general. Recently he noted data
Speaker 2: that people now spent on average in the United States
Speaker 2: about four and a half hours a day on social media.
Speaker 2: And that's not even accounting for work on your computer
Speaker 2: or Google or whatever.
Speaker 3: It's really just social media.
Speaker 2: So with the US falling to sixty third position, if
Speaker 2: you were to just look at youth to blow thirty,
Speaker 2: that is really a shame. And I would challenge everybody
Speaker 2: in the United States, the society is government leaders to
Speaker 2: not punch below its way by this much. Because the
Speaker 2: objective dimensions that you have in placed, wealth, health, and
Speaker 2: much else, you should be doing a lot better for you.
Speaker 1: What can we do for our young people and what
Speaker 1: can they do for themselves? John has plenty of suggestions
Speaker 1: right after the If social media, driven by the big
Speaker 1: tech firms that dominate our economy is to blame for
Speaker 1: the unhappiness we see in young people across North America,
Speaker 1: Western Europe and as far away as Australia, there's probably
Speaker 1: not much we can do about it, right well, Oxford
Speaker 1: professor Joan Emmanuel Jenev billed out a bit more hope.
Speaker 2: Technologies have come around. They tend to help and be helpful,
Speaker 2: but with certain boundaries in place that evolve over time
Speaker 2: as we better understand the impact of these technologies. So
Speaker 2: an obvious one that we owe to Vivicmurphy, the US
Speaker 2: serge in general, is he made the parallel between cars,
Speaker 2: and at first cars were driving around in the streets
Speaker 2: with huge numbers of traffic fatalities as a result because
Speaker 2: of the cars weren't safe enough. We weren't wearing our seatbelts.
Speaker 2: So over time we realize that this is a good
Speaker 2: technology but needs specific limitations in place, and then they
Speaker 2: were slowly but gradually put in place, and now we're
Speaker 2: all benefiting from mobility in a relatively safe way as
Speaker 2: a result of this coevolution between technology and social norms.
Speaker 2: And the same could be done here with social media.
Speaker 2: I think this can be a cocreation where everybody benefits
Speaker 2: from these new technologies, but with certain guardrails in place.
Speaker 1: And so the idea is that as a society, as parents,
Speaker 1: as people, we can sort of advocate for those guardrails.
Speaker 1: We can, you know, push the government to say, hey,
Speaker 1: what does the seat belt look like for Facebook, for
Speaker 1: TikTok or something like that, What is maybe a speed
Speaker 1: limit look like for maybe the amount of time you're
Speaker 1: on these kinds of things and so on. Like, if
Speaker 1: we push for that, then we can get maybe the
Speaker 1: benefits of technology would like less of the limitation precisely.
Speaker 2: And so we need to think carefully about how we
Speaker 2: harness the positives of social media and make sure that
Speaker 2: these virtual connections ultimately lead to physical connections amongst people.
Speaker 2: Because we also heard from the US Surgeon General that
Speaker 2: in his tour around these colleges, who's talking about a
Speaker 2: change of culture where kids in high schools come up
Speaker 2: to them and say, look, but we don't have a
Speaker 2: culture anymore of speaking to each other, and let that
Speaker 2: sink in for a moment. That's pretty bad. And it
Speaker 2: also makes sense because if you now walk into a
Speaker 2: lunch cafeteria in a high school, people will be behind
Speaker 2: their screens and so it's much harder to stroke up
Speaker 2: a conversation between each other and bond as human beings
Speaker 2: and not just through virtual means. So we need to
Speaker 2: think very carefully as a society to harness the good
Speaker 2: elements of technology and make sure that social media puts
Speaker 2: the social frankly and social media.
Speaker 1: You know, this is something that I saw like rit
Speaker 1: large when I was working with students at Yale. I
Speaker 1: remember one kind of moment where I was thinking, like, Wow,
Speaker 1: the youth are really struggling with their social connection and
Speaker 1: they're turning to technology to like solve it. We had
Speaker 1: this kind of competition on campus for like a new app, right,
Speaker 1: you know, like they're all these schools kind of do
Speaker 1: these like tech competitions, And one of the potential apps
Speaker 1: that won the competition that I was looking at at
Speaker 1: Yale was this app that was called Let's Get a Meal,
Speaker 1: And the idea is like you go to the dining
Speaker 1: hall and you're scared to talk to people, but you
Speaker 1: go in Let's get a Meal, which is kind of
Speaker 1: like Tinder for the dining hall, and you say, you know,
Speaker 1: I could want to get a meal with somebody who
Speaker 1: would want to get a meal with me, And you
Speaker 1: sort of swipe and find like, oh, I'll eat with
Speaker 1: that person. And like the older folks who are judging
Speaker 1: this competition like me, were like, wait, but it's the
Speaker 1: dining hall. Why don't you just like sit down with someone.
Speaker 1: It's like one hundred students that you all should really
Speaker 1: know because they're like in your same dorm, Like just
Speaker 1: talk to somebody. But the students really felt like they
Speaker 1: needed a tool, a technological tool, to like connect and
Speaker 1: just talk with somebody in their lunch cafeteria.
Speaker 2: I think that speaks to what Vivik Merthy you as
Speaker 2: certain general toll is that that culture has changed. It's
Speaker 2: now not easy to sort of reach out to other
Speaker 2: people in the cafeteria in person. We need to bring
Speaker 2: it back into people's comfort zone to be able and
Speaker 2: willing and actually be able to reach out to human
Speaker 2: beings in person and not necessarily neat the technology enabling
Speaker 2: of that when people are literally sitting in the cafeteria.
Speaker 1: But this idea raises a certain hypothesis, which is that
Speaker 1: the way that technology is affecting social connection is in
Speaker 1: some sense worse for youth in North America and Australia
Speaker 1: and New Zealand versus in Europe and in Africa.
Speaker 2: Do we know that that's the case, We need to mean,
Speaker 2: it's an empirical question, you're asking, So we need to
Speaker 2: find out data of how much time they spend and
Speaker 2: obviously in the US we now know it's about four
Speaker 2: and a half hours a day. My guesstimate is that
Speaker 2: will be slightly less in the Global South or Central
Speaker 2: and Eastern Europe. Then the question is also not just
Speaker 2: how much time they spend on the social media, but
Speaker 2: also what kind of social media and then how people
Speaker 2: are using it. Is a passive use or is it
Speaker 2: an active use, which is also very different. So passive
Speaker 2: use is not to be recommended, but active use of
Speaker 2: social media, where we actively reach out to people, actively
Speaker 2: talk about yourself and connect with others, can be beneficial
Speaker 2: for people's well being and mental health. So it's hard
Speaker 2: to say there is something this is quirky, but we
Speaker 2: ran an extra analysis to try and understand this. And
Speaker 2: North America obviously is the US and Canada. The Canada
Speaker 2: is split between the Francophones Quebecua and the English or
Speaker 2: Native English Canadians, which are then obviously closer with the
Speaker 2: US counterparts who look at sort of US slash Canadian
Speaker 2: English spoken medium and there's something really striking there that
Speaker 2: could point us in the direction a thought, which is
Speaker 2: Quebecqui youth have seen a drop but by no means
Speaker 2: as large as the English spoken Canadian youth, and that
Speaker 2: was not obviously in line with the American youth. And
Speaker 2: so John Halliwell, my wonderful colleague and really the heart
Speaker 2: and soul of the Royal Happiness Report, has noted that
Speaker 2: and sees it as suggestive of the fact that the
Speaker 2: English slash American media is perhaps more dominated by negative
Speaker 2: news or calls that out in more conflictual ways then say,
Speaker 2: the more international global Francophone way of news access. And
Speaker 2: so this may not be social media, but more how
Speaker 2: news is presented to youth in the world, in the
Speaker 2: Francophone world, it might be less conflectual, less negative, speaking,
Speaker 2: less to our negativity biases in terms of news than
Speaker 2: it is in the English spoken the world in North America.
Speaker 2: So there's an interesting hint there of something going on
Speaker 2: that will not explain everything, but it's quite striking, we thought, and.
Speaker 1: It fits with the thing that you were saying earlier,
Speaker 1: which is, you know that many of the changes in
Speaker 1: the US are about political polarization, and if you have
Speaker 1: a news media that's kind of biased towards pulling that out,
Speaker 1: and we have youth have phones in their pockets that
Speaker 1: are dinging every time some politicians says something mean or
Speaker 1: you know that negativity bias can get strugg over.
Speaker 2: It can get overwhelming and dominates, and it's really sad
Speaker 2: that then it doesn't allow any space for positive news.
Speaker 1: And if you think about, you know, just like the
Speaker 1: way college was, news was back when I was in college.
Speaker 1: You know, it was just so different then, right. I
Speaker 1: could pull up a newspaper and read something terrible, but
Speaker 1: then I would put the newspaper down and I could
Speaker 1: go to the library and hang out with my friends.
Speaker 1: And again it wasn't like diinging with a notification in
Speaker 1: my pocket. About something terrible that was happening in the world.
Speaker 1: And when I just think about the kind of anxiety
Speaker 1: that can come from that theft of my attention and
Speaker 1: that constant negative information, like it just must feel so
Speaker 1: different for the youth of today.
Speaker 3: It certainly does.
Speaker 2: And the algorithms behind social media are obviously optimized to
Speaker 2: get our attention. And as you know, well, we're hardwired
Speaker 2: to be more attentive to negative things that are potential
Speaker 2: threats or issues that are alarming, rather than positive news,
Speaker 2: and so the algorithm tries to seek our attention and
Speaker 2: then obviously does it by pinging us with negative news
Speaker 2: because they know that we'll get our attention more easily
Speaker 2: than positive news. So here too, maybe we should start
Speaker 2: nudging or providing frameworks in place to maybe balance us
Speaker 2: out a bit more.
Speaker 3: Or we can do this ourselves.
Speaker 2: We can undertake these automatic notifications, I'm sure than typically
Speaker 2: negative news. We can perhaps subscribe to more positive news sources.
Speaker 2: And I think I've actually heard there's a sort of
Speaker 2: a new journal that is meant to be mostly trying
Speaker 2: to balance out towards pulsitive news.
Speaker 3: Maybe we can subscribe to that. We'll find out about.
Speaker 2: When dogs are being found, we'll find out about the
Speaker 2: World Happiness Report and the good things that are happening,
Speaker 2: not just the bad things, et cetera, et cetera, et
Speaker 2: c to help us ourselves regain our sanity.
Speaker 3: In that way.
Speaker 1: So let's say you're a parent listening to this, maybe
Speaker 1: even a parent in North America for example, watching these
Speaker 1: trends and just feeling really worried. You are there particular
Speaker 1: strategies or practices you could suggest for parents for how
Speaker 1: they could reverse the trend, maybe not in their whole country,
Speaker 1: but maybe in their own community or in their own family.
Speaker 2: Well, I think as parents who are really concerned and
Speaker 2: probably rightly so, what they need to do is, I
Speaker 2: think try and understand their kids first foremost, because their
Speaker 2: kids are good kids, but they're in a tough, complex
Speaker 2: situation and not because of them, because of society around
Speaker 2: them making it very difficult. So the social media that
Speaker 2: tries to really attract all of their attention, and there's
Speaker 2: everything possible with the most brilliant designers and software engineers
Speaker 2: designing algorithms to really try and keep them hook to
Speaker 2: the screens. There's AI automation that is making the future
Speaker 2: of work cloak both interesting but also difficult and complex.
Speaker 2: I mean, as a youth today, think about choices you
Speaker 2: need to make for say studies. You might be saying, oh,
Speaker 2: I'd love to be a lawyer and start legal studies.
Speaker 2: But by the end of view four or five years
Speaker 2: of law school, everything you've learned could be obsolete because
Speaker 2: they chat GPT in some legal version of it. So
Speaker 2: there's so many uncertainties that kids live with today and
Speaker 2: so many technologies trying to get their attention. So I
Speaker 2: think the first thing that parents need to do really
Speaker 2: is to try and understand the complexity with which they live.
Speaker 1: And I love this advice because, you know, honestly, even
Speaker 1: with my yal students, sometimes I get people who react
Speaker 1: of like, oh, what's their problem, you know, those snowflakes,
Speaker 1: Like they really can't handle it. But I think when
Speaker 1: you look carefully at the actual societal struggles that young
Speaker 1: people are facing today, like it makes sense that you're
Speaker 1: freaked out and feeling anxious about what's happening in the
Speaker 1: world of work. It makes sense that you're freaked out
Speaker 1: and anxious about political polarizing and inequality. We see, you know,
Speaker 1: at least in the United States, and so I love
Speaker 1: this idea that what parents need to start with is
Speaker 1: just to recognize, like, it's tough out there for young
Speaker 1: people today, it's.
Speaker 2: Very tough out there, and so they need to start
Speaker 2: with listening to their own children rather than trying to
Speaker 2: bust them around and put these hard limits in place,
Speaker 2: and understand the pressures they're under. And if they do that,
Speaker 2: then I think they'll understand, for example, that there's lots
Speaker 2: of peer pressure. So for example, if you say to
Speaker 2: your child you cannot have an iPhone or an iPad,
Speaker 2: or you can't go onto this particular app then your
Speaker 2: child may actually be missing out on important things happening
Speaker 2: in their.
Speaker 3: Own school community.
Speaker 2: And this then leads to a second thought that parents
Speaker 2: could perhaps do is to coordinate with other parents or
Speaker 2: their local school to see, hey, if there are specific
Speaker 2: peer pressures or some people have access to something and
Speaker 2: others do not, and that puts sort of inequalities in
Speaker 2: place that are really harmful, then can there be a
Speaker 2: coordinate approach amongst the parents of kids that are friends
Speaker 2: or in the same class, or can they work at
Speaker 2: the school boards to say, like, hey, can we have
Speaker 2: a norm or a reference point or something that we
Speaker 2: would recommend as a school or the parents of a
Speaker 2: whole club of school friends.
Speaker 1: And I think this is really important because it really
Speaker 1: is not trying to intervene on, say, your kids particular
Speaker 1: social media use or the fact that they're on TikTok
Speaker 1: all the time. It's actually working in their community to
Speaker 1: try to get these norms changed around, which makes it
Speaker 1: easier for the individual to end up engaging in practices
Speaker 1: that might be healthier for people's happiness exactly. And some
Speaker 1: of the folks listening to the Happiness Lab right now
Speaker 1: might themselves be in the category of folks that you
Speaker 1: put in there. You know, what is it ten to
Speaker 1: twenty five is your definition of youth? If there's a
Speaker 1: teenager listening right now, what advice might you have for
Speaker 1: them as an individual for how to kind of fight
Speaker 1: some of these trends.
Speaker 2: I think the first thing is to understand again that
Speaker 2: you are living in a complex situation, that your attention
Speaker 2: is being fought over, and that you should not let
Speaker 2: yourself be had. If you will buy the brilliant software
Speaker 2: engineers of these social media platforms, take agency over your
Speaker 2: own time. Follow Laurie's principles.
Speaker 1: Around listen to the rest of the happiness lab, observe
Speaker 1: exactly and.
Speaker 2: Apply these principles about setting your own boundaries and not
Speaker 2: letting yourself be consumed by the big social media platforms.
Speaker 2: And by all means, try and re establish a culture
Speaker 2: of connection. And I know it's changed, there's no longer
Speaker 2: a culture of speaking to each other, but make efforts
Speaker 2: to get out of your comfort zone and do so.
Speaker 2: And if I may want very specific practical piece of
Speaker 2: advice is one thing we've seen in the wellbeing science
Speaker 2: is that it's ultimately all about social connection and when
Speaker 2: you do good things for other people pro social behaviors
Speaker 2: as we call it in the industry, but really benevolent
Speaker 2: acts like volunteering, donating small amounts, helping strangers in need,
Speaker 2: talking to strangers. That doesn't just help the people on
Speaker 2: the receiving end, but we've now shown over and over
Speaker 2: again in large studies with causal inference that this also
Speaker 2: helps yourself. And so by all means, try and do
Speaker 2: good things for other people, and you will see it
Speaker 2: shouldn't be the goal line and of itself, but you'll
Speaker 2: see that will help improve your own well being too.
Speaker 1: And So one of the reasons I've loved dear chapter
Speaker 1: on the World Happiness Report is that it kind of
Speaker 1: calls out the trends that I was seeing in North America.
Speaker 1: But I think it also provides us with a lot
Speaker 1: of hope, right, Like, it isn't just the case that
Speaker 1: youth mental health is going down all over the world.
Speaker 1: If anything, what we're seeing is like there are possibilities
Speaker 1: for improving things. They involve changes, and they involve both
Speaker 1: societal changes like maybe making things more equal, and also
Speaker 1: individual changes like engaging in more social connection. But there's
Speaker 1: hope there. The trend isn't just like, you know, a
Speaker 1: downward slope forever. We can all take agency and change
Speaker 1: these things exactly.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned social connection, and I think that's probably
Speaker 2: the real key, and again putting social in social media
Speaker 2: and connecting in person. And it's a bit silly to
Speaker 2: say it's a bit, but if you think about moving
Speaker 2: from ill being to well being, it doesn't take much.
Speaker 2: It takes moving from I to E and you move
Speaker 2: ill being to well being. And that's just not just
Speaker 2: a symbolically or figuratively, but that's for real. And the
Speaker 2: more I've studied well being, and I know you've done
Speaker 2: the same, Laurie. It's always about ultimately social capital, the
Speaker 2: social fabric of society, your own quality social connections. So yes,
Speaker 2: by all means, do social media, but make sure it's
Speaker 2: with people that you actually connect with in a way
Speaker 2: that works for your well being and in real life
Speaker 2: and in real life. Actually, I'm not reminded your calling down.
Speaker 2: Nick Christakis and James Fowler way back they did some
Speaker 2: of the first studies of social media around Facebook, and
Speaker 2: they looked at sort of connections on Facebook and numbers
Speaker 2: of connections, and then they really cleverly look that are
Speaker 2: these connections that are sort of quite remote or quite close.
Speaker 2: And the way they did this is by looking at
Speaker 2: the pictures you're posting. Are the people you were tagging
Speaker 2: actual people that you were meeting also live and so
Speaker 2: that sort of became a proxy for qualitative social connections
Speaker 2: rather than sort of more distant connections that are more
Speaker 2: virtual in nature. And they found a big difference between
Speaker 2: having actual ties with people being tagged together with you
Speaker 2: in photos circling in social media, then having lots of
Speaker 2: other friends that weren't actually part of your actual physical
Speaker 2: surroundings and environment, and so that I think is a
Speaker 2: big hint.
Speaker 3: It's an old study, but it was ahead of.
Speaker 1: Its time, and so so far we've been talking about
Speaker 1: kind of what's gone wrong in North America. But I
Speaker 1: love the World Happiness Report youths data because it's really
Speaker 1: showing that something actually much more positive is happening in
Speaker 1: the global South and in Europe, and so I want
Speaker 1: to talk about the positive trends in those countries. You know,
Speaker 1: what do we think is changing that's actually making people
Speaker 1: happier in those parts of the world.
Speaker 2: So I think what's happening in say subseri, in Africa,
Speaker 2: parts of Asia, and especially Central and Eastern Europe. Because
Speaker 2: by the way, you should know that if you were
Speaker 2: to do a ranking of countries just based on youth
Speaker 2: in the world happen sport rather than just the general
Speaker 2: population of countries, it'd be Lithuania on top for the
Speaker 2: below thirties. And that's really striking. So the Central and
Speaker 2: Eastern European countries have really come to the fore on
Speaker 2: that front. That's with driving obviously their general rise and
Speaker 2: the rankings as well into the top twenty really and
Speaker 2: so that's exciting and we should look at those cases
Speaker 2: in a bit like off a positive psychology approach, we're
Speaker 2: rather than focusing in on what's going wrong in America
Speaker 2: with youth, maybe we can learn something from what's going
Speaker 2: right in say Lithuania, or in other parts of the world.
Speaker 2: And so in particular Subsiharan Africa, we see that youth
Speaker 2: below twenty five in this case is rising. Adults are
Speaker 2: rising as well, but the delta difference between youth and
Speaker 2: adults is increasing, So youth are proportionally getting happier and
Speaker 2: that's exciting. And it's obviously the exactly opposite, the mirror
Speaker 2: image of what's happening in the United States. Why and
Speaker 2: so why I don't know is the honest answer, But
Speaker 2: I think it will have to do with something we
Speaker 2: touched upon earlier, which is the global convergence in terms
Speaker 2: of income, so globalization. Of being an economist, we do
Speaker 2: think about the economics of trade, global trade, globalization, and
Speaker 2: it's probably behind much of the inequality within countries, but
Speaker 2: it has effectively reduced inequality between countries, and so it
Speaker 2: has lifted lots of people out of poverty. And for example,
Speaker 2: China having become the blasto now but about ten twenty
Speaker 2: years ago, because of globalization, became sort of the factory
Speaker 2: of the world. While it brought a lot of wealth,
Speaker 2: half a billion people rose out of poverty, and it's
Speaker 2: the same across Africa, parts of Asia, et cetera.
Speaker 3: It's probably most striking.
Speaker 2: In the context of Central and Eastern Europe because you'll remember,
Speaker 2: in the early two thousands the Central and Eastern European
Speaker 2: countries joined the EU, and that meant a lot of
Speaker 2: wealth transfer from Western Europe to Eastern Europe. So I
Speaker 2: think Romania, Lithuania, and the other Baltic nations, et cetera.
Speaker 1: Poland probably a lot of hope among the youth. Right
Speaker 1: we were thinking about their job prospects in a different
Speaker 1: way now.
Speaker 2: So suddenly from being a Polish youth in Poland looking
Speaker 2: for jobs there, the whole EU open up to you
Speaker 2: as essentially a way of travel and job opportunities. And
Speaker 2: then these wealth transfers through the European Union's funds and subsidies,
Speaker 2: if you will, from the western, richer countries in Europe
Speaker 2: to the not so rich Eastern European countries also meant
Speaker 2: a certain degree of convergence in economic GDP per capital levels.
Speaker 2: What's interesting here is that in Eastern Europe there has
Speaker 2: always been a foundation of redistribution for good or bad reasons.
Speaker 2: They were in the orbit of communism or socialism. So
Speaker 2: that meant that there's always been sort of a DNA
Speaker 2: of redistributing wealth to some extent, which isn't there in
Speaker 2: other countries. So the reason why I'm emphasizing this is
Speaker 2: one of the reasons why the Kandonavian countries do so
Speaker 2: well is because they're wealthy, but more importantly, they redistribute
Speaker 2: their wealth and there's an equality there which and also
Speaker 2: feeds into the welfare state. There's other wealthy countries out there,
Speaker 2: the United States amongst others, the US amongst others, where
Speaker 2: there's a lot of wealth. So gdpeper a capital, the
Speaker 2: average wealth is huge, but it's not equally distributed. So
Speaker 2: that then also feeds into well being in equalities.
Speaker 1: And so totally, particularly well being in young people right
Speaker 1: who are looking at the next generation and their economic
Speaker 1: prospects and so on.
Speaker 2: Exactly and are not seeing the same prospects or not
Speaker 2: as looking forward to the future as previous generations were.
Speaker 2: Just to finish the thought, so what could be driving
Speaker 2: say central in Eastern Europe is not just sort of
Speaker 2: a wealth transfer convergence between West and Eastern Europe in
Speaker 2: terms of wealth, but then also the foundations were in
Speaker 2: place in Eastern Europe to build a welfare state and
Speaker 2: redistribute this to a large extent so that everybody sort
Speaker 2: of benefits from the rising tide, if you will, And
Speaker 2: I think that will probably be the fuel, the main
Speaker 2: driver behind I think my youth well being in this
Speaker 2: place is starting to pick up. In addition to the
Speaker 2: prospect of having way more job opportunities opening up through
Speaker 2: the EU.
Speaker 1: In addition to the sort of positive changes that we're
Speaker 1: seeing in the global South and in Europe, we're also
Speaker 1: seeing some countries that are pushing to make child happiness
Speaker 1: and national priority. So tell me about some of the
Speaker 1: successes that we've seen in those countries that really pay
Speaker 1: attention to this in particular and push for improved child wellbeing.
Speaker 2: So I know for a fact that in Japan they
Speaker 2: have a whole new program around child health and wellbeing,
Speaker 2: and they take this very seriously, and part because they're
Speaker 2: moving towards well being more generally, but they've also really
Speaker 2: gotten the importance of youth wellbeing today pays dividends over
Speaker 2: time in the later lives of these youngsters. You see
Speaker 2: that the focus then goes into schooling, the education system,
Speaker 2: what can we do there, And so you find in
Speaker 2: places like Japan, but also China and South Korea and
Speaker 2: many other places, we're all sort of teaching to the test,
Speaker 2: the SATs in the United States, the GCSS and the
Speaker 2: A levels here in the United Kingdom. And that's also
Speaker 2: raising questions because if that's the only basis of sort
Speaker 2: of success is to do well on these tests. And
Speaker 2: so you see new programs being developed around say Healthy
Speaker 2: Minds is one of the programs that Lord Layard that
Speaker 2: they heard or mentor has really introduced in the United Kingdom,
Speaker 2: showing and teaching people life skills in addition to stem science, technology, engineering, math.
Speaker 2: And what we find is that introducing life skills makes
Speaker 2: for happier, more balanced human beings. It's pretty crazy to
Speaker 2: think that we'd only focus in on the science elements,
Speaker 2: or perhaps English literature and others and not teach people
Speaker 2: to live good lives, especially in the era of social
Speaker 2: media where people need to be given a sense of
Speaker 2: what's happening on that front. A good example here on
Speaker 2: the policy front is actually is Manchester, so they have
Speaker 2: the whole school system round. Manchester is part of a
Speaker 2: program called be Well where they are introducing essentially life
Speaker 2: skill courses and tracking thousands and thousands students across many
Speaker 2: dozens of schools to see what the impact is on
Speaker 2: their well being and ultimately also their performance on these testcores.
Speaker 2: Is to see that if you feel better, feel more
Speaker 2: balanced as youth, as a student, is that also improve
Speaker 2: actually your performance. The big question here is can we
Speaker 2: have it both? Can we have great performance on our
Speaker 2: tests and SATs and GCSS while being and leading happier lives.
Speaker 1: I think that's so important. I mean, it's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons that I started my class at Yale. But
Speaker 1: I agree completely, Like you know, those are twenty one
Speaker 1: year old. You know, if we could just start that earlier,
Speaker 1: when kids are ten, eleven, twelve, I think it would
Speaker 1: make such a difference.
Speaker 3: Anybody with young kids.
Speaker 2: Mine are too young for this, but anybody I know
Speaker 2: who has kids that are now in high school know
Speaker 2: the impact of say high school, primary and secondary school
Speaker 2: is huge and perhaps more influentially than the parents have
Speaker 2: influence on their kids. We need to work really with
Speaker 2: the schools and the curriculum to make sure people get
Speaker 2: life skills and learn how to lead fulfilling lives.
Speaker 1: As you know, I'd love to see the fundamentals of
Speaker 1: happiness science taught to kids in more schools around the world.
Speaker 1: I mean, we do so much to educate young people
Speaker 1: about math and literature. Why aren't we also teaching young
Speaker 1: people the happiness skills they'll need later in life. Why
Speaker 1: aren't we ensuring that they know more about how to
Speaker 1: prioritize friendships, sleep, gratitude, and doing good for others. If
Speaker 1: you're a teen, or if you know a teen, you
Speaker 1: should check out the new version of my happiness course
Speaker 1: that's just for young people. It's called The Science of
Speaker 1: well Being for Teens, and you can access the course
Speaker 1: for free at Corsera dot org. That's Coursera, the word
Speaker 1: course ra dot org. And again the free class is
Speaker 1: called The Science of well Being for Teens. We're leaving
Speaker 1: the World Happiness Report behind for now, but we still
Speaker 1: have some happiness science treats in store for you. On
Speaker 1: the day the report was released, the United Nations International
Speaker 1: Day of Happiness, I had the good fortune to attend
Speaker 1: the World Happiness Summit in London. Welcome to the WAHASU
Speaker 1: Live version of the Happiness Lab, where I got to
Speaker 1: speak to a medical doctor also happens to be one
Speaker 1: of Europe's top wellness podcasters. To introduce my guest, doctor
Speaker 1: Rungan Chatterjee, the host of the Feel Better, Live More podcast. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about why medical doctors need
Speaker 1: to pay even more attention to happiness. Well, how's the audience.
Speaker 1: Are you all interested in medical doctors paying more attention
Speaker 1: to happiness? And you'll get to hear more of my
Speaker 1: awesome conversation with doctor Rungin Chatterjee Next time on the
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab with me Doctor Laurie Santos