“It suggests that something is seriously wrong in the lives of young people and that whatever went wrong seemed to happen around 2012, or 2013,” said study coau

“It suggests that something is seriously wrong in the lives of young people and that whatever went wrong seemed to happen around 2012, or 2013,” said study coauthor Jean Twenge. She noted that this was around the time smartphones became common and social media moved from being optional to mandatory among youngsters. I just...OMG who the hell are these people. Maybe the economy just stopped getting better for most people after 2008? I mean duh. After a few years when finally becomes obvious that the new normal is gig economy jobs and living under debt until you die, say around 2012-2013, then people's happiness starts to nose dive. That's a much more explanatory answer than "the cell phones did it". It's like an old person - I thought she was a baby boomer, but she's only 48 - that has a phd (and everything!) is desperately trying to figure out what's going wrong, and they have all the data. They. Just. Can't. Quite. Get There. This is the type of person that's running society, maybe that's the problem. Face palm.