It's very strange that even the authors of the study are taking this headline position. If you go and look at the actual paper: http://spp.sagepub.com/content

It's very strange that even the authors of the study are taking this headline position. If you go and look at the actual paper: http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/10/1948550615602933.full.pdf+html http://spp.sagepub.com/content/early/2015/09/10/194855061560... You will see that 18-29 year old self-reported happiness is flat when compared with the last thirty years, off the post-1975 lows of 2005, but below the 1985 and 1990 measurements: http://i.imgur.com/VXpYCy7.png http://i.imgur.com/VXpYCy7.png Older adult happiness, however, is breaking decidedly to the downside. One can only conjecture why this research is being spun as "happier young people" rather than "less happy old people".