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Young adulthood is no longer one of life's happiest times
- iwanttocomment 2y agoHey, Gen Z. Gen X here. I personally think this whole "young adulthood is the happiest time of your life" is some sort of bizarre Boomer artifact, and certainly wasn't in play in the late '80s or '90s. I was told that repeatedly when I was a teenager, but it certainly wasn't the case for me or most of the people I knew when I was a young man, 35 years ago. We were all totally blindsided by how bad the high school experience was, and for many of us, the college experience was bad as well. The good news is that as we became independent from our families and the institutions that we were committed to, and found paths in our work and family life to be productive, the majority of us became totally normal, functional people. Would I say "happy"? Sometimes but certainly not always - for almost all of us. Life has its way, with health and work and family issues that larger social or economic issues will never have any influence over, regardless of the era you grow up in. But this article says that people are least happy at 50. So, I'm 50. Am I happy? Not, like, happy happy. But am I OK? Yeah, sure, I've figured things out, have my own family, it's all turned out OK. Am I happier than any point in young adulthood in the late '80s and early '90s? Absolutely. This whole "best years of your life" as a teen or young adult thing is... nonsense. It has nothing to do with the possibilities of the human experience. For some people? Sure, let them have their fun. But I don't want to sound like Dan Savage, but, for everyone, it can get better. Chart your own path, work it out for yourself.
- platz 2y agoOh, well I guess If you're OK that's all that matters. What's the point of anecdotes if the subject is about statistics.
- thriftwy 2y agoStatistics come after "lies" and "damn lies". I can also confirm that adolescence sucks. You have many important experience but quality of life just isn't there.
- l3x4ur1n 2y agoWell for me adolescence was pretty OK. Had my fun, played games all day after school (which itself was alright too) and that continued well into my college and even few years after that. In college I had a blast, really the best years of my life from "careless freedom" point of view. Never ever will I live like that again, it is not sustainable in the long run, but it was really fun when I was under 25. I continued the lifestyle later, but the satisfaction with my life went rapidly down, because I wanted something deeper. Today, at 30, with wife and a child, I don't have so much fun as I used to, life is more stressful and busy, but at the end of the day it is more satisfying and I would not want it otherwise.
- thriftwy 2y agoFor some reason, college was super stressful for me emotionally. I was struggling academically, then commuting to part-time work while trying to contain personal issues creeping up on me. Yes, there was its fun, such as golden age of PC games, pre-Facebook internet and the whole 2007 thing; but my life is far less stressful nowdays, even though I too have family and kids.
- l3x4ur1n 2y agoI'm glad it eventually got better!
- chant4747 2y ago[flagged]
- itronitron 2y agook boomer
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- greenchair 2y agounfortunately statistics from "reputable" sources can be worse than anecdotes due to appeal to authority line of thinking.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- iwanttocomment 2y ago"It's an established fact," says economist who has been studying issue for only 15 years, and suddenly encounters radically contradictory data across cohorts. (All of the above is in the article.)
- greenchair 2y agoany article that includes "economists agree" you can pretty much expect the opposite is true.
- khazhoux 2y agoThis site is being overrun by human beings sharing their experiences!
- mgkimsal 2y ago'boomers' had their youth in the mid 60s... a booming time - music, revolution, sex, etc... and coming of age as western economies were booming (or about to) after WW2. GenX... 'greed is good' age of Wall Street, AIDS epidemic, constant threat of nuclear war permeating every aspect of culture - go watch 80s shows and see how many references to 'commies' and 'ww3' and such - it was everywhere. Yes, I know every generation has their burdens, but yeah, I think the 'high school/teenage years is the best time of your life' may have been true for a small cohort of folks, but has become a myth perpetuated by the first consumerist generation who then got to shape culture and media for a few decades.
- nytesky 2y agoWhile I agree with you, the Cuban Missle Crisis was the 60s, so I assume nuclear war was very vivid. But having fresh memories of WW2, perhaps we felt confident “never again?” or were numbed to the idea.
- mgkimsal 2y agoYeah, I guess the kids in 50s/60s did nuclear missile drills - hide under your desk in school, etc.
- CrimsonCape 2y agoIf your generation's financial system is such that you, at age 20, can obtain a job, immediately move into your own housing, and the house and vehicle aren't a net drain. You are accruing money despite paying for the house and vehicle. Doesn't that define the 60s? Seems like at 20 in the 60s you would at least be spared the worry of going broke due to a lost vehicle or rent payment.
- fdhfdjkfhdkj 2y ago[dead]
- itronitron 2y agoIn the USA at least I hope young people realize the extent to which they are being ripped off by its universities and colleges. In-state tuition now costs about what private ivy-league tuition did in the 1990's. Meanwhile, if you are attending university in the EU and you are an EU citizen your tuition is free. Let that sink in.
- andix 2y agoStill the happiness levels seem to drop in both "systems" equally.
- wredue 2y agoGen Z has their own challenges. They’re being inundated with fake news everywhere they look. Privacy is over. Advertising is invading every aspect of life. Democratic institutions are crumbling in favour of dictatorship right before our eyes. Corporations are so above the law that they car bombed a journalist in broad daylight without fear of any repercussion. I really feel for them. We have some serious shit to figure out before handing over the reigns. If we can’t, I seriously hope they figure something out.
- maxerickson 2y agoHey, what if we made it worse since you did all that?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- khazhoux 2y agoHello fellow Gen-Xer. I remember a teacher in high school (male, coach, hairy thick forearms) telling us at an end of senior year assembly, with a huge smile: "Enjoy these times, everyone. These will be the happiest days of your life!" And I immediately thought he was a fucking pathetic loser who needs to stop raining his shitty life over the rest of us. At 17 I wasn't so stupid to believe that could possibly be true. But you hear that crap non-stop from adults at that age. For a couple of people in my high school that might have actually been true, though. Seems to correlate with getting drunk and high (sorry, "partying") non-stop. Also, the teacher got arrested a few years later for shoplifting.
- jemmyw 2y agoI'm 41 and the happiest I've been. Kids are growing, I've got a well paying job, bit of time for hobbies, and I've started getting more involved in the local community via a sport I enjoy. I could have done some of the the things that make me happy earlier in life but it's hard when you're putting effort into your career. I didn't enjoy high school times, University was ok but I was too introverted back then.
- andix 2y agoI think this research is based on hard facts and numbers, and not on the memories boomers tell about their youth.
- qwerpy 2y agoI think it's counterproductive to tell people that "this time of your life is the best, you better enjoy it". People are different and framing something like that as a universal truth means that anyone who didn't have a good time somehow missed the best time of their lives. That being said, I'm curious why it seems fairly widespread that everyone had a bad time when they were young. Am millennial, grew up in the 80s and 90s and went to college in the 00s. Junior high was fine. High school was fun. College was great. Afterwards, in adulthood, I think pressure at work caused me the most consistent unhappiness of my life, but I got better at dealing with that over time.
- andix 2y agoThis article establishes, that things aren't any more like you experienced them in the past. It certainly wasn't all great in the past for young people, but statistics show it's way worse now.
- nytesky 2y agoIs the u shaped curve just a proxy for financial condition? Young people starting out didn’t make much but eventually earned more saved and could look forward to a house and affording a family The U curve is lowest when career starts plateau or decline, financial demands for college couple with a mortgage, and then once kids launch and mortgage is paid off (because you could afford to buy in your 20s), happiness rises.
- beaglesss 2y agoI would also expect child support and alimony demands peak from 35-49 or so. It's got to be stressful knowing if you can't come up with the cash not only will you starve but you'll be tossed in a cage and your professional license, dl, and passport revoked
- PhasmaFelis 2y agoPeople are expected to care for their own children, yes.
- szundi 2y agoPoint was probably about the higher ratio of these people
- beaglesss 2y agoChild support actually is a transfer payment to the custodial parent with no check any of it goes to the child, 'child support' is a misnomer like 'patriot act'. Taking care of the child is a separate consideration, it can be spent on the kids, shoes, or a case of jack daniels.
- dymk 2y agoThen you can take your ex to court and get custody. It’s not like this situation wasn’t considered.
- 2y ago
- lisper 2y agoIt has apparently escaped the notice of the authors of this article that in 2022 we had just begun to recover from a once-in-a-century global pandemic that lasted two years, killed eight million people (so 30% more than the number of Jews killed in the Holocaust), left countless thousands living with debilitating long-term symptoms, and permanently deprived an entire cohort of once-in-a-lifetime formative experiences, like graduating high school or going to the prom, and also left them with vastly greater uncertainty about their future financial prospects. Furthermore, if you are 17, then all of that represents a much higher percentage of your conscious experience than if you're 50 or 70, so why on earth would anyone be surprised that 17-year-olds in 2022 report lower life satisfaction than 17-year-olds from 2005-2018? Furthermore, the rest of the variation is highly questionable. The vertical scale on the graph is compressed. The actual difference in the alleged U is only about 0.1, or 3% of the absolute scale value of 3.3. That is a tiny difference. I'd frankly be surprised if it was even statistically significant, let alone indicative of an actual underlying systemic change. So I'm calling shenanigans here. UPDATE: I searched for "pandemic" rather than "COVID" so I missed this: > Later, as he put it, he “thought that everything was COVID.” Now, Blanchflower says, he sees that was an error. “COVID extended trends that had existed before,” he says. But the data presented do not support this conclusion at all. There are no "trends that had existed before" in the data since all pre-covid data is grouped together in a single data set.
- beaglesss 2y agoAlso consider the fatality rate for youth was low compared to elderly, so it must have looked like we threw their education and recreation in the wood chipper for grandma, when normally at least in modern times sacrifices are made by adults to the children not the other way around.
- _gmax0 2y agoObligatory "please do not discount suvivorship bias in your results".
- Twisell 2y agoFrom the article conclusion : > “What you need here is something that starts around 2014 or so, is global and disproportionately impacts the young—especially young women,” he says. “Anybody that comes up with an explanation has got to have something that fits that. Other than cell phones, I don’t have anything. I don't now maybe seing consequences of global climate change with your bare eyes and noticing most of boomers are in full denial might be a at least a "small" contributing factor? Maybe even more than cell phone if I may dare?
- andix 2y agoI don't think so. It's probably a real threat to human survival, but most people lack the perspective to recognize that. Humans are great at denial. I guess not even the majority see climate change as the biggest threat, there are people who see an equal threat solely in vaccinations or diversity. For others it might be immigration, war or economy. Maybe the difference is that we invented devices and services to easily share our fears and communicate them to others. 15 years ago most people weren't equipped with the tools to keep a constant stream of new information about "their" biggest fear alive. They might have read a book about it, some articles on the internet, or a documentation on TV. But getting that information needed some effort. Like getting some screen time on the family PC (which took minutes to boot up), going to the book store, or renting a DVD. It was something that you did maybe twice a month. Today everyone can open their favourite apps at any time and get new content about "their" fear multiple times a day. The social media platforms even keep suggesting those new pieces of information, so you see them also if your intention was only to watch some cat videos to calm down before going to bed.
- Twisell 2y ago> I don't think so. It's probably a real threat to human survival, but most people lack the perspective to recognize that. Humans are great at denial. If you don't think so, like the OP, then my youngest point of view about the reason why youngest generation must be fearful of the futur is indeed invalid. I really see no flaw in this reasoning, billions of people are probably gonna dies but that's not gloomy at all...
- standardUser 2y agoYouth are happier with more regimentation and now they have less. Adults are happier with less regimentation and now we have... less! It's tough to be a kid in an increasingly diverse and changing society. Especially when they are on the forefront of that cultural transformation and have to face relentless attacks from a large part of the adult establishment. We probably need new and different ways to teach and engage with kids, but instead the conversation usually ends up about phones or pronouns. Like when people used to complain about too much TV and violent video games. These specific obsessions distract from the actual issues, which is and has always been about making mental health a core focus of our society.
- blowski 2y ago> Youth are happier with more regimentation Are you saying young people like being given rules?
- standardUser 2y agoThere's a boatload of research showing kids do better overall with structure, stability and routine.
- blowski 2y agoSo they benefit from the extra “regimentation”, although whether they like it or not is another matter.
- andix 2y agoIf you're an average person and don't require acceptance of diversity, the whole topic is miniscule. There are some newspaper articles discussing it, you just skip them, because you don't care. A new coworker tells you to call them with some pronoun, you use that pronoun, as easy as remembering their name. You might walk past a rainbow flag, without even noticing it. It's not relevant to the majority, unless they want to obsess about it and want to feel offended by it. But maybe the need to find something to be obsessed and feel threatend about is exactly the issue here. It can be anything that's different than it used to be. It might be also something that is exactly as it used to be and doesn't change.
- skdotdan 2y agoAs an anecdotal data point, I’m happier than in my early and mid 20s, and I have hope for my 30s.
- toomuchtodo 2y agoWould you be willing to share what is causing your unhappiness, and what has caused the changes you mention and optimism for the future?
- skdotdan 2y agoEdited
- AlbertCory 2y agoComparing eras' difficulties is ultimately meaningless. When you're an adolescent, everything is new and for the first time (more or less). You have nothing to compare it to. Every decision you make has the potential to shape your entire life, except you don't know which ones. Nothing will ever feel like that again. Everything else is just a footnote.
- ASalazarMX 2y agoYoung adults can also be viewed as old adolescents. They want to be treated like adults, but need someone to care of them like kids. It's not a happy period for any generation.
- AlbertCory 2y agothat can be true, but doesn't obviate what I said. Hardly anyone thinks it's wonderful at the time. Many people look back on it with fondness ("youth is wasted on the young"). Assuming some other generation had it wonderful is silly. They had their own worries.
- andix 2y agoI think it's crucial to find out why this is happening. "Other than cell phones, I don’t have anything" is not good enough as a conclusion. It's the most obvious thing, but it could have numerous other reasons. It should be possible to extend this research with other factors. There must be a few participants that rarely use smartphones and the internet. Do they show the different results? If the source is the internet (social media, online videos, ...) we really need to learn more about this. What exactly makes it that harmful.
- big-green-man 2y agoIn my mind, and this isn't science, just observation, the two main problems are loneliness and not being able to afford what was in decades past a "normal life." I think the internet and smartphone have a large role in the lonelinesses part. All in all, a teenager has this idea that when they're an adult they'll start living life, and then they get there and they can't start a family and have a home of their own because they can't meet people and afford to get going.
- andix 2y agoI don't think that poverty and money has such a big effect on happiness, as long as the basic needs are covered (food and a dry/clean bed to sleep). There was a lot of happiness in Eastern European countries during the communist time. They were lacking so many things and they saw many human rights violations, but it didn't break the majority of people. Many people still have a lot of good memories about that time, although the circumstances weren't easy at all.
- quantified 2y agoIt's all relative to expectations. Habits can make a big difference. Participatory culture (making music, church, extended family and friend group socializing) don't need to cost much money. Consumer culture (streaming, concerts) costs more, plus you are now expected to pay $$$ for communication technology. People can make other people happy without much money, that's my point.
- 2y ago