0:15

Pushkin. When

0:22

the team behind the annual World Happiness Report

0:24

finds that Finns are happier than Danes, or

0:26

that Canadians are happier than Americans, those

0:29

broad results hide a ton of nuance. We've

0:32

been unpacking some of the reports more interesting

0:34

details in our last few episodes, but

0:36

today we're going to tackle one of the most

0:38

striking findings in this year's report.

0:41

What's been happening to young people's happiness

0:43

over the last few years. And the picture

0:46

is pretty complicated. The good

0:48

news is that youth happiness has been rising

0:50

in certain parts of the world. But the bad

0:52

news is that some of the wealthy nations out

0:54

there have seen worrying declines, and

0:57

that includes the young people where I live in

0:59

North America. But the big question

1:01

is why and what can be done to

1:03

halt this awful slide. If anyone

1:06

can help us figure it all out, it's Yon Emmanuel

1:08

Denev Hey Lauri.

1:09

I'm a professor of economics and behavioral science

1:11

at the University of Oxford, where I also

1:14

lead the Wellbeing Research Center.

1:16

He's also one of the co authors of the World Happiness

1:18

Report and the lead author of the chapter

1:20

that focused specifically on gen Z.

1:23

This year's report, we focus in on the age

1:25

categories, and my team and I we've

1:28

really worked hard on childhoodlessoned well being

1:30

and so the way we define child and adlesson it

1:32

is up for debate, but we've essentially

1:34

put it as between ten and twenty

1:37

four, so late adolescence, because there's still

1:39

some neurological development happening at these later stages

1:42

of late adolescents. And so it also

1:44

was convenient because that's where the data sort of starts.

1:46

The earliest subjective wellbeing data starts

1:48

around age ten thanks to the

1:51

Children's World's data set, and then we

1:53

do have the Gallop whirldpoll and that runs

1:55

from about fifteen years of age all the way to twenty four.

1:57

So it was also a convenient

2:00

to some extent to make sure that we have

2:02

these age cutoffs.

2:03

And so usually the World Happiness Report is often focused

2:05

on adult well being. Why is it important

2:07

to look at well being in children and adolescents?

2:10

Oh, I was absolutely adamant on the editorial

2:12

board to start thinking more seriously

2:14

about child adlesson well being is, as you say,

2:16

the world happen and support which does the World's rankings

2:18

of what the happiest populations are, but they

2:21

were really eighteen plus and so at some point,

2:23

and we obviously all knew with COVID putting a spotlight

2:25

on child mental health that we had to take

2:28

child and ad last and wellbeing way more seriously.

2:30

But there's always been a lack of data, and the Gallobral

2:33

Pole, our workhorse, if you will, for the rankings

2:35

only starts really from late adolescens onwards.

2:38

So it was a massive effort, and we waited in

2:40

a way for the PISA data. The OECD releases

2:42

the PISA data, but that only happens once every four

2:44

years or so, and so that combined

2:47

with two other data sets, Children's Worlds and HPSC,

2:50

allowed us to start piecing together the global

2:52

map of child and a lesson and Wellbeing. But to your

2:54

question of why it matters, child and lesson and well

2:56

being matters so much because

2:58

it's the best predictor of how you will be

3:01

doing as an adult d and

3:03

so mental health as a child or and as an adolescent

3:05

is the best predictor of life outcomes and quality of

3:07

life for life satisfaction as an adult. And

3:10

one particular study that I care much about

3:12

not just because I'm a quothor on it. It's about ten years

3:14

ago and the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences,

3:16

Andrew Roswell and I published a paper

3:19

where we show that adolescent well being

3:21

and we were able to get data from the American National

3:23

Lujournal Study of Adolescent Health, and

3:26

we found that at different ages around

3:28

adolescents, their well being at those

3:30

ages was most predictive of

3:32

the same individual's earnings as they were

3:35

growing up. What we found is that ages I think

3:37

twelve, fifteen, nineteen and twenty

3:39

one. It's a panel study, so it's the same fifteen

3:41

thousand American youth that have been tracked

3:43

over time. This was started in the early nineties

3:46

and they continued to be followed with

3:48

surveys all the way into their thirties. So

3:50

we have what their well being when they're adolescents,

3:53

and we have their sort of adult outcomes, including

3:55

how much they're earning age thirty and above. And

3:57

what we found was that their levels of well being

3:59

adolescents was a massive predictor

4:02

of how they would be doing later in life, even

4:04

as measures through their earnings. Now one

4:07

could say, well, maybe it's because happy or

4:09

from richer families and socio economic

4:11

status is higher for these youngsters, but

4:13

we were able to control for that in a nifty

4:16

way, if I may say so, which is in that

4:18

sample of American youth of about fifteen thousand,

4:21

they were about three thousand siblings. So

4:23

what we did is introduce what we call

4:25

sibling fixed effects or family fixed effects,

4:27

where we would start looking at the differences

4:29

between the siblings well being and seeing

4:31

how explanatory that is of

4:34

the differences in the future earnings

4:36

of these siblings. So, say, Laura, you and I are sister

4:38

and brother, not unfeasible, and

4:42

we would be looking at your well being, my well

4:44

being, looking at the differences between them, and

4:46

then see whether that can explain differences

4:48

in our later earnings and labor market outcomes,

4:51

if you will, when we're thirty and above and low and

4:53

behold it did.

4:53

And so it's kind of like, if you know, if you and I were brother and

4:55

sister, but I was less happy, maybe I was

4:58

more depressed, even though we grew up in the same house, probably

5:00

went to the same schools and so on, I'd be

5:02

less happy as an adult and I'd be earning less

5:04

as an adult.

5:05

Too precisely, and it's quite significant. So

5:07

this is all data, but it was thousands of already

5:09

back in those days when the study was run.

5:11

So we really need to understand like kid mental health,

5:13

because it's having these important predicted outcomes.

5:16

But my understanding was always that the story was

5:18

that overall kids tended to be happier

5:20

than adults. So walk me through the kind of typical

5:23

patterns like happiness. Researchers have seen

5:25

it about what happens to age across the life course.

5:27

What we kind of used to think happened.

5:29

Well typically and we still find it

5:31

mostly to be the case around the world. Is

5:33

what you will know better than anyone else is

5:35

the U shape relationship between age and

5:38

well being. So essentially we start at quite

5:40

high in terms of our well being. We're happy

5:42

as kids, We're happy happy as we can be as

5:44

kids, and in fact then the report this to me

5:46

was insight for me, is just how happy

5:48

kids really are. So if you look at the earliest ages

5:51

that we have data for in life satisfaction, they

5:53

start like at nine out of ten as an average

5:55

in some countries in terms of life satisfaction.

5:57

So we start really happy, and then we slide

6:00

down the U curve towards the midlife

6:02

crisis, which typically late thirties early forties,

6:04

with the pressures of life coming through, mortgage

6:06

to be paid off, small kids to be dealing with,

6:08

and the prime of your careers and the pressures of that,

6:10

and then you sort of like things brighten up

6:12

again.

6:13

Kids leave.

6:14

You have the benefit of having kids, but without

6:17

the negativity around having to deal with it day

6:19

in day out. Your expectations become more

6:21

realistic and you start climbing

6:23

up the other side of the U shape between age

6:25

and well being that has broken down in certain

6:27

societies. So the big insight coming through

6:29

in this year's World Happy Sport with a focus

6:32

on age is that in North America, the US

6:34

in particular, needless to say, and to a lasser

6:36

extent in Western Europe and Britain, you

6:38

find that the first element of the U shape

6:41

is no longer there. It's completely flattened, and in the

6:43

US it's even reversed. Where youth

6:45

in this case is below thirty or below twenty

6:47

five, depending on which data set you look at,

6:49

they start lower in terms of their self

6:52

rated quality of life, their well being lower

6:54

than the adults and that's really disconcerting,

6:57

and that trend has started what

6:59

is it ten to fifteen years ago, but sort

7:01

of in twenty eighteen, it's sort of flipped where

7:03

you see that the youngsters in

7:05

America below twenty five

7:07

in this case are less happy than the

7:10

adults.

7:10

That's nowhere else to be seen.

7:12

And this is something that really affected me a

7:14

lot.

7:14

Right.

7:14

This is one of the reasons that I started my happiness class

7:16

at Yale is that, you know, I was looking at

7:18

college students who I remember back

7:21

when I was in college in the nineties. I remember them being

7:24

they weren't happy all the time, but not

7:26

the rates of depression and anxiety that we're seeing

7:28

in our current students, and I just felt

7:30

like there was an enormous shift there. It sounds like, at least

7:32

with the North American data that's being born out and the

7:34

report.

7:35

Absolutely so what your famous

7:37

experience there is born out in the data

7:39

has never seen before in this way, and that trend

7:42

that you picked up way back when you launched

7:44

your famous class has continued

7:47

and actually exacerbated during

7:49

COVID that hasn't recovered since either for

7:51

the first time in the world happening support We've done

7:53

this test to see if you were to split

7:56

the population youth, older, and everyone

7:58

in between. If you were to do a ranking

8:01

just on youth populations around the world, the

8:03

US would drop to sixty third.

8:05

Sixty third, sixty third.

8:07

We're usually in the top twenty.

8:09

Yeah, actually like in the

8:11

top end of the top twenty normally is the population

8:13

as a whole. But because of youth falling

8:15

off a cliff in terms of their well being, the

8:18

general population in the US has now dropped

8:20

from i think place fifteen to place twenty

8:22

third, and that's wholly driven by

8:24

youth not reporting

8:26

their life's going well.

8:28

And the problem is, it's probably not just the youth of today,

8:30

right, given what we talked about earlier, where

8:33

youth mental health is actually predicting something about

8:35

what those young people are going to be experiencing later

8:37

on. Not investing in the youth of today

8:39

being sixty third means or likely to

8:41

be sixty third, you know, into adulthood and

8:43

into many decades to come.

8:45

That is absolutely true.

8:46

So not only is there an urgent need to do something

8:48

because you can, but also because

8:51

you have to, because, as you say, the predictive

8:53

power of child and adolescent

8:55

wellbeing and mental health will track throughout

8:58

people's life course, and that doesn't bode

9:00

well for the future.

9:01

So I think one of the big puzzles though, is that, yes,

9:03

this is the trend that we're seeing in North America,

9:05

this is the kind of thing that I saw in my college students

9:07

in the US. But my understanding

9:09

is this doesn't seem to be the trend that we're seeing around

9:12

the world.

9:13

Correct.

9:13

Absolutely, So this is one of the other big insights

9:15

coming out from the World Happiness Support and

9:17

where really put the word world into the World

9:19

Happening Support because of this is we

9:22

piece data together from the global South, for example,

9:24

and unlike North America and

9:26

Western Europe, to some extent, you find in places

9:28

like Sub Saharan Africa you find that youth

9:31

has actually increased their self rate

9:33

a well being, so they find that the culity lives

9:35

is higher these days than it was before.

9:38

And that's in a way good news. It shows

9:40

that this is not a universal thing. It shows that

9:42

this can be reversed as a negative trend in

9:45

North America and the US in particular, and

9:47

I think that's really important to understand that

9:49

globally there are massive regional differences.

9:52

And so talk about what could be causing these differences,

9:55

because this isn't just kind of, you know, a subtle

9:57

pattern, like we're just seeing these extreme differences

9:59

in how unhappy North America and

10:01

to some extent Australia and New Zealand teens

10:04

are, but how much happier you know, folks

10:06

are in the global South and even

10:08

in in Europe. So like, what's

10:11

going wrong in North America?

10:13

Well, before we dig into North America, I

10:15

think the reason why you have sort of a convergence

10:17

really it's not like youth in Sub Sahara, Africa

10:20

is happier than youth in say Belgium

10:22

where I'm from, or the United Kingdom. It's

10:25

that they're sort of catching up and Western

10:27

Europe and North America coming down. So there's, if

10:29

you will, a global convergence to some extent,

10:31

and we've got an amazing figure in the World Happen Sport

10:34

Chapter three that kind of where you see that quite clearly, we

10:36

see North America, Western Europe come down, Central

10:38

Eastern Europe come up, sub so Aheran Africa come

10:40

up, and some regions in Asia come up as well.

10:43

And I think that global convergence

10:45

is probably a result of the global

10:48

inequalities reducing.

10:50

So we always talk about inequality rising,

10:52

and that's certainly the case within countries and especially

10:55

in North America and Western Europe and Australia

10:57

New Zealand, but globally you see

10:59

actually a reduction between countries

11:01

in wealth and income, and I think that's

11:03

partially also behind this convergence that we

11:06

see in well being and in youth

11:08

well being in particular.

11:09

So in some ways it's awesome that the youth of

11:11

these parts of the world are kind of getting happier

11:13

over time, But when we look at North America,

11:16

what factors are causing you know, North American

11:18

kids and kids in Australia and New Zealand to feel

11:21

so unhappy these days.

11:22

So I don't think there's one smoking

11:24

gun, if you will, that you can point to, but there's

11:27

a lot going on that it's not going in the

11:29

right direction. And so we can point

11:31

to the inequalities within

11:33

society in the United States, for example,

11:35

rising, which then obviously have to downstream

11:38

consequence on people's mental health and wellbeing

11:40

and opportunities for youth from less

11:42

privileged backgrounds. We can talk

11:45

about polarization, politics

11:47

teering people apart, social fabric being

11:49

in the US being torn apart, communities

11:51

being torn apart, within families,

11:54

youth and older generations, or between

11:56

youth, brothers and sisters, those discussions

11:58

falling apart, and then I think there's no way around that.

12:00

We also need to look at technology. You kind of get

12:02

around the fact also that the slide in

12:05

youth well being coincience with the

12:07

coming up of social media

12:10

and how people use social media, so that

12:12

can have positives and negatives, but if people use

12:14

it passively, people who are young and vulnerable,

12:17

and what they use in terms of social media and for

12:19

how long. And so we had the privilege

12:21

of speaking with Vec Murphy the USR

12:23

surge in general. Recently he noted

12:25

data that people now spent on average in the United

12:28

States about four and a half hours a day on

12:30

social media. And that's not even accounting for work

12:33

on your computer or Google or whatever.

12:35

It's really just social media.

12:37

So with the US falling to sixty

12:39

third position, if you were to just look at

12:41

youth to blow thirty, that is really

12:44

a shame. And I would challenge everybody

12:46

in the United States, the society is government

12:48

leaders to not

12:50

punch below its way by this much.

12:52

Because the objective dimensions

12:55

that you have in placed, wealth, health, and

12:57

much else, you should be doing a

12:59

lot better for you.

13:01

What can we do for our young people and

13:03

what can they do for themselves? John

13:06

has plenty of suggestions right after

13:08

the If

13:16

social media, driven by the big tech

13:18

firms that dominate our economy is to

13:20

blame for the unhappiness we see in young people

13:22

across North America, Western Europe

13:24

and as far away as Australia, there's

13:27

probably not much we can do about it, right

13:30

well, Oxford professor Joan Emmanuel Jenev

13:33

billed out a bit more hope.

13:35

Technologies have come around. They

13:37

tend to help and be helpful, but with

13:39

certain boundaries in place that evolve over

13:41

time as we better understand the impact of these technologies.

13:44

So an obvious one that we owe

13:46

to Vivicmurphy, the US serge in general, is

13:49

he made the parallel between cars,

13:51

and at first cars were driving

13:54

around in the streets with huge numbers

13:56

of traffic fatalities as a result because

13:58

of the cars weren't safe enough. We weren't wearing our seatbelts.

14:01

So over time we realize that this is

14:03

a good technology but needs specific limitations

14:05

in place, and then they were slowly but

14:07

gradually put in place, and now we're all

14:10

benefiting from mobility in a relatively

14:12

safe way as a result of this coevolution

14:14

between technology and social

14:17

norms. And the same could be done here with

14:19

social media. I think this can be

14:21

a cocreation where everybody benefits

14:23

from these new technologies, but with certain

14:26

guardrails in place.

14:28

And so the idea is that as a society, as

14:30

parents, as people, we can sort of advocate

14:32

for those guardrails. We can, you know, push

14:34

the government to say, hey, what does the seat belt look like

14:36

for Facebook, for TikTok or something like

14:38

that, What is maybe a speed limit look like for

14:41

maybe the amount of time you're on these kinds of things

14:43

and so on. Like, if we push for that, then we can

14:45

get maybe the benefits of technology would like

14:47

less of the limitation precisely.

14:49

And so we need to think carefully

14:52

about how we harness the

14:54

positives of social media and make sure

14:56

that these virtual connections ultimately

14:58

lead to physical connections amongst

15:01

people. Because we also

15:03

heard from the US Surgeon General that

15:06

in his tour around these colleges,

15:08

who's talking about a change of culture where

15:11

kids in high schools come up to them and say, look,

15:13

but we don't have a culture anymore of speaking

15:15

to each other, and let that sink in for a

15:17

moment. That's pretty bad. And it

15:20

also makes sense because if you now walk

15:22

into a lunch cafeteria in a high school,

15:24

people will be behind their screens and so

15:27

it's much harder to stroke up a conversation

15:29

between each other and bond as human beings

15:32

and not just through virtual means. So we

15:34

need to think very carefully as a society

15:36

to harness the good elements of technology

15:39

and make sure that social media puts the social

15:41

frankly and social media.

15:43

You know, this is something that I saw like rit large

15:45

when I was working with students at Yale. I

15:47

remember one kind of moment

15:50

where I was thinking, like, Wow, the youth are really struggling

15:52

with their social connection and they're turning to technology

15:55

to like solve it. We had this kind of competition

15:58

on campus for like a new app, right, you know, like

16:00

they're all these schools kind of do these like tech competitions,

16:03

And one of the potential apps that won

16:06

the competition that I was looking at

16:08

at Yale was this app that was called

16:10

Let's Get a Meal, And the idea is

16:12

like you go to the dining hall and you're scared

16:14

to talk to people, but you go in Let's get a Meal,

16:16

which is kind of like Tinder for the dining hall, and you say,

16:19

you know, I could want to get a meal with somebody who would

16:21

want to get a meal with me, And you sort of swipe and find like, oh,

16:23

I'll eat with that person. And like the

16:25

older folks who are judging this competition

16:28

like me, were like, wait, but it's the

16:30

dining hall. Why don't you just like sit down with

16:32

someone. It's like one hundred students that you all

16:34

should really know because they're like in your same dorm,

16:36

Like just talk to somebody. But the students

16:39

really felt like they needed a tool, a

16:41

technological tool, to like connect and

16:43

just talk with somebody in their lunch cafeteria.

16:46

I think that speaks to what Vivik Merthy

16:48

you as certain general toll is that that

16:51

culture has changed. It's now not easy

16:53

to sort of reach out to other people

16:55

in the cafeteria in person. We

16:58

need to bring it back into people's comfort zone

17:00

to be able and willing and actually

17:02

be able to reach out to human beings in

17:04

person and not necessarily neat

17:06

the technology enabling of that

17:09

when people are literally sitting in the

17:11

cafeteria.

17:12

But this idea raises a certain hypothesis,

17:15

which is that the way that technology

17:17

is affecting social connection is in some sense

17:19

worse for youth in North America and Australia

17:22

and New Zealand versus in Europe

17:24

and in Africa.

17:25

Do we know that that's the case, We

17:27

need to mean, it's an empirical question, you're asking, So we

17:30

need to find out data of how much time they

17:32

spend and obviously in the US

17:34

we now know it's about four and a half hours a day.

17:38

My guesstimate is that will be

17:40

slightly less in the Global South

17:42

or Central and Eastern Europe. Then the

17:44

question is also not just how much time they spend

17:46

on the social media, but also what kind

17:48

of social media and then how people

17:50

are using it. Is a passive use or is

17:53

it an active use, which is also very different. So

17:55

passive use is not to be recommended,

17:57

but active use of social media, where we actively

17:59

reach out to people, actively talk about yourself

18:01

and connect with others, can be beneficial

18:04

for people's well being and mental health. So

18:06

it's hard to say there is something

18:08

this is quirky, but we ran

18:10

an extra analysis to try and understand

18:13

this. And North America obviously is the

18:15

US and Canada. The Canada is split

18:17

between the Francophones Quebecua

18:19

and the English or Native

18:22

English Canadians, which are then obviously

18:24

closer with the US counterparts who

18:26

look at sort of US slash

18:28

Canadian English spoken medium and there's something

18:30

really striking there that could point us in the direction

18:33

a thought, which is Quebecqui

18:35

youth have seen a drop but by no means

18:38

as large as the English spoken

18:40

Canadian youth, and that was not obviously

18:42

in line with the American youth. And so

18:45

John Halliwell, my wonderful

18:47

colleague and really the heart and soul of the Royal

18:49

Happiness Report, has noted

18:51

that and sees it as suggestive

18:54

of the fact that the English slash

18:56

American media is perhaps

18:58

more dominated by negative news or

19:01

calls that out in more conflictual ways

19:04

then say, the more international global

19:07

Francophone way of news

19:10

access. And so this may not be social

19:12

media, but more how news is presented to

19:14

youth in the world, in the Francophone

19:16

world, it might be less conflectual,

19:18

less negative, speaking, less to our

19:20

negativity biases in terms of news than

19:23

it is in the English spoken the world in

19:25

North America. So there's an interesting hint

19:27

there of something going on that will

19:29

not explain everything, but it's quite striking, we thought,

19:32

and.

19:32

It fits with the thing that you were saying earlier, which is, you

19:34

know that many of the changes in the US

19:36

are about political polarization, and

19:38

if you have a news media that's kind of biased

19:41

towards pulling that out, and we have youth

19:43

have phones in their pockets that are dinging every time

19:45

some politicians says something mean or you

19:47

know that negativity bias can get

19:49

strugg over.

19:50

It can get overwhelming and dominates, and

19:52

it's really sad that then it doesn't allow any

19:54

space for positive news.

19:56

And if you think about, you know, just like the way college

19:58

was, news was back when I was in college.

20:00

You know, it was just so different then, right. I could pull

20:03

up a newspaper and read something terrible,

20:05

but then I would put the newspaper down and I could go

20:07

to the library and hang out with my friends. And again

20:09

it wasn't like diinging with a notification

20:11

in my pocket. About something terrible that was happening

20:13

in the world. And when I just think about the kind of

20:16

anxiety that can come from that theft

20:18

of my attention and that constant negative

20:21

information, like it just must feel so different

20:23

for the youth of today.

20:24

It certainly does.

20:25

And the algorithms behind social media are

20:27

obviously optimized to get our attention. And

20:30

as you know, well, we're hardwired to

20:32

be more attentive to negative things

20:35

that are potential threats or issues

20:37

that are alarming, rather than positive

20:39

news, and so the algorithm tries

20:41

to seek our attention and then obviously does it

20:43

by pinging us with negative news because

20:45

they know that we'll get our attention more easily than

20:48

positive news. So here too, maybe

20:50

we should start nudging or providing

20:52

frameworks in place to maybe balance us

20:54

out a bit more.

20:55

Or we can do this ourselves.

20:56

We can undertake these automatic notifications,

20:59

I'm sure than typically negative news. We can

21:01

perhaps subscribe to more positive

21:04

news sources. And I think I've actually

21:06

heard there's a sort of a new journal

21:09

that is meant to be mostly trying to balance

21:11

out towards pulsitive news.

21:12

Maybe we can subscribe to that. We'll find

21:14

out about.

21:15

When dogs are being found, we'll

21:17

find out about the World Happiness Report and the good

21:19

things that are happening, not just the bad things, et cetera,

21:21

et cetera, et c to help us ourselves

21:24

regain our sanity.

21:25

In that way.

21:25

So let's say you're a parent listening to this, maybe even

21:27

a parent in North America for example, watching

21:30

these trends and just feeling really worried. You

21:32

are there particular strategies or practices

21:34

you could suggest for parents for how they could reverse

21:37

the trend, maybe not in their whole country, but maybe in their

21:39

own community or in their own family.

21:40

Well, I think as parents who are really concerned

21:43

and probably rightly so, what they need

21:45

to do is, I think try and understand their kids

21:47

first foremost, because their kids are

21:50

good kids, but they're in a tough, complex

21:52

situation and not because of them,

21:54

because of society around them making it very difficult.

21:57

So the social media that tries to really attract

21:59

all of their attention, and there's everything possible

22:02

with the most brilliant designers and software

22:04

engineers designing algorithms to

22:06

really try and keep them hook to the screens. There's

22:09

AI automation that is making

22:12

the future of work cloak both interesting

22:14

but also difficult and complex. I

22:16

mean, as a youth today, think about

22:19

choices you need to make for say studies. You

22:21

might be saying, oh, I'd love to be a

22:24

lawyer and start legal studies. But by the end

22:26

of view four or five years of law school,

22:28

everything you've learned could be obsolete because they

22:31

chat GPT in some legal version of it.

22:33

So there's so many uncertainties

22:36

that kids live with today and

22:38

so many technologies trying to get

22:40

their attention. So I think the first thing

22:43

that parents need to do really is to try and understand

22:45

the complexity with which they live.

22:47

And I love this advice because, you know, honestly, even

22:49

with my yal students, sometimes I get people

22:52

who react of like, oh, what's their problem, you

22:54

know, those snowflakes, Like they really can't handle

22:56

it. But I think when you look carefully at the actual

22:58

societal struggles that young people are facing

23:00

today, like it makes sense that you're freaked

23:03

out and feeling anxious about what's happening in the world

23:05

of work. It makes sense that you're freaked out and

23:07

anxious about political polarizing and inequality.

23:10

We see, you know, at least in the United States, and so

23:12

I love this idea that what parents need to start

23:14

with is just to recognize, like, it's tough out

23:17

there for young people today, it's.

23:18

Very tough out there, and so they need to start with listening

23:21

to their own children rather than trying to bust them

23:23

around and put these hard limits in place, and

23:25

understand the pressures they're under. And if

23:28

they do that, then I think they'll understand,

23:30

for example, that there's lots of peer pressure.

23:33

So for example, if you say to your child

23:35

you cannot have an iPhone or an iPad,

23:37

or you can't go onto this particular app then your child

23:39

may actually be missing out on important things

23:42

happening in their.

23:43

Own school community.

23:45

And this then leads to a second

23:47

thought that parents could perhaps do is to coordinate

23:50

with other parents or their

23:52

local school to see, hey, if there

23:54

are specific peer pressures or

23:56

some people have access to something and

23:58

others do not, and that puts sort of inequalities

24:01

in place that are really harmful,

24:04

then can there be a coordinate approach

24:06

amongst the parents of kids that are

24:08

friends or in the same class, or can

24:10

they work at the school boards to say, like, hey,

24:12

can we have a norm or a

24:15

reference point or something that we would

24:17

recommend as a school or the parents of

24:19

a whole club of school friends.

24:22

And I think this is really important because it really is

24:24

not trying to intervene on, say, your kids

24:26

particular social media use or the fact that they're

24:28

on TikTok all the time. It's actually working

24:31

in their community to try to get these norms

24:33

changed around, which makes it easier for the individual

24:36

to end up engaging in practices that might be

24:38

healthier for people's happiness exactly.

24:41

And some of the folks listening to the Happiness Lab right

24:43

now might themselves be in the category of

24:45

folks that you put in there. You know, what is it ten to twenty

24:47

five is your definition of youth? If

24:49

there's a teenager listening right now, what advice

24:51

might you have for them as an individual for how to

24:53

kind of fight some of these trends.

24:55

I think the first thing is to understand

24:58

again that you are living in a complex

25:00

situation, that your attention is being fought

25:02

over, and that you should

25:04

not let yourself be had. If

25:07

you will buy the brilliant software engineers

25:09

of these social media platforms, take agency

25:12

over your own time. Follow Laurie's

25:15

principles.

25:16

Around listen to the rest of the happiness lab, observe

25:19

exactly and.

25:20

Apply these principles about setting your own

25:23

boundaries and not letting yourself be consumed

25:26

by the big social media platforms.

25:29

And by all means, try and re establish

25:31

a culture of connection. And

25:34

I know it's changed, there's no longer a

25:36

culture of speaking to each other, but

25:38

make efforts to get out of your comfort zone and do

25:41

so. And if I may want

25:43

very specific practical

25:45

piece of advice is one thing we've

25:47

seen in the wellbeing science is that it's

25:50

ultimately all about social connection and when

25:52

you do good things for other people pro

25:54

social behaviors as we call it in the industry,

25:57

but really benevolent acts like volunteering,

25:59

donating small amounts, helping strangers

26:02

in need, talking to strangers. That

26:04

doesn't just help the people on the receiving

26:06

end, but we've now shown over and

26:09

over again in large studies

26:11

with causal inference that this also

26:13

helps yourself. And so by all means,

26:16

try and do good things for other people, and

26:19

you will see it shouldn't be the goal line and of itself,

26:21

but you'll see that will help

26:24

improve your own well being too.

26:27

And So one of the reasons I've loved dear chapter

26:29

on the World Happiness Report is that it kind of calls

26:31

out the trends that I was seeing in North America.

26:33

But I think it also provides us with a lot of hope, right,

26:36

Like, it isn't just the case that youth mental health

26:39

is going down all over the world. If

26:41

anything, what we're seeing is like there are

26:43

possibilities for improving things. They involve

26:45

changes, and they involve both societal changes

26:47

like maybe making things more equal, and also

26:50

individual changes like engaging in more social

26:52

connection. But there's hope there. The trend

26:54

isn't just like, you know, a downward slope forever.

26:57

We can all take agency and change these things exactly.

26:59

And you mentioned social connection, and I think that's probably

27:01

the real key, and again putting social

27:04

in social media and connecting in

27:06

person. And it's a bit silly

27:08

to say it's a bit, but if you think

27:10

about moving from ill being to well

27:13

being, it doesn't take much. It takes

27:15

moving from I to E and you move

27:17

ill being to well being. And that's just not

27:20

just a symbolically or figuratively, but that's

27:22

for real. And the more I've

27:24

studied well being, and I know you've done

27:26

the same, Laurie. It's always about

27:28

ultimately social capital, the social fabric

27:31

of society, your own quality social connections.

27:33

So yes, by all means, do social media, but

27:36

make sure it's with people that you actually

27:38

connect with in a way that works

27:41

for your well being and in real life and in real

27:43

life. Actually, I'm not reminded your calling

27:46

down. Nick Christakis and James

27:48

Fowler way back they did some of the first

27:50

studies of social media around Facebook, and

27:52

they looked at sort of connections

27:54

on Facebook and numbers of connections,

27:57

and then they really cleverly look that

27:59

are these connections that are sort of quite remote or

28:02

quite close. And the way they did this is by looking

28:04

at the pictures you're posting. Are the people you were tagging

28:07

actual people that you were meeting also live

28:10

and so that sort of became a proxy for

28:12

qualitative social connections rather

28:15

than sort of more distant connections that are more virtual

28:17

in nature. And they found a big difference between

28:20

having actual ties with people

28:22

being tagged together with you in photos circling

28:25

in social media, then having lots of other friends that

28:27

weren't actually part of your actual

28:30

physical surroundings and environment, and

28:32

so that I think is a big hint.

28:33

It's an old study, but it was ahead

28:36

of.

28:36

Its time, and so so far we've been talking about kind

28:38

of what's gone wrong in North America. But I

28:40

love the World Happiness Report youths

28:42

data because it's really showing that something actually

28:45

much more positive is happening in the global

28:48

South and in Europe, and so I want to talk about

28:50

the positive trends in those countries.

28:52

You know, what do we think is changing that's actually

28:54

making people happier in those parts of the world.

28:57

So I think what's happening in say subseri,

28:59

in Africa, parts of Asia, and especially Central

29:01

and Eastern Europe. Because by the way, you

29:03

should know that if you were to do a ranking

29:05

of countries just based on youth in

29:08

the world happen sport rather than just the general population

29:10

of countries, it'd be Lithuania on

29:12

top for the below thirties. And that's really striking.

29:15

So the Central and Eastern European countries have really

29:17

come to the fore on that front. That's with driving obviously

29:20

their general rise and the rankings as well

29:22

into the top twenty really and so

29:24

that's exciting and we should look at those

29:27

cases in a bit like off a positive psychology

29:29

approach, we're rather than focusing in on what's

29:32

going wrong in America with youth, maybe

29:34

we can learn something from what's going right in say

29:36

Lithuania, or in other parts of the

29:38

world. And so in particular Subsiharan

29:41

Africa, we see that youth below twenty

29:43

five in this case is rising. Adults

29:45

are rising as well, but the delta difference

29:47

between youth and adults is increasing,

29:50

So youth are proportionally getting

29:52

happier and that's exciting. And it's obviously the exactly

29:54

opposite, the mirror image of what's happening in the United

29:56

States. Why and so why I

29:59

don't know is the honest answer,

30:01

But I think it will have

30:04

to do with something we touched upon earlier, which

30:06

is the global convergence

30:09

in terms of income, so globalization.

30:12

Of being an economist, we do think about the

30:14

economics of trade, global trade, globalization,

30:17

and it's probably behind much of the inequality

30:20

within countries, but it has effectively

30:22

reduced inequality between countries, and

30:24

so it has lifted lots of people

30:26

out of poverty. And for example, China having

30:29

become the blasto now but about

30:31

ten twenty years ago, because of globalization, became

30:34

sort of the factory of the world. While it brought a

30:36

lot of wealth, half a billion people rose

30:38

out of poverty, and it's the same across

30:40

Africa, parts of Asia, et cetera.

30:43

It's probably most striking.

30:45

In the context of Central and Eastern Europe because

30:48

you'll remember, in the early two thousands

30:50

the Central and Eastern European countries joined the EU,

30:53

and that meant a lot of wealth transfer

30:56

from Western Europe to Eastern Europe. So

30:58

I think Romania, Lithuania, and

31:00

the other Baltic nations, et cetera.

31:02

Poland probably a lot of hope among

31:04

the youth. Right we were thinking about their job prospects

31:07

in a different way now.

31:08

So suddenly from being a Polish youth

31:10

in Poland looking for jobs there, the whole

31:13

EU open up to you as essentially

31:15

a way of travel and job opportunities.

31:18

And then these wealth transfers through the

31:20

European Union's funds and subsidies,

31:22

if you will, from the western, richer

31:25

countries in Europe to the not so rich

31:27

Eastern European countries also meant a

31:29

certain degree of convergence in economic GDP

31:32

per capital levels. What's interesting here is

31:34

that in Eastern Europe there has always

31:37

been a foundation of redistribution

31:39

for good or bad reasons. They were in the orbit of communism

31:42

or socialism. So that meant that there's always

31:45

been sort of a DNA of redistributing wealth

31:47

to some extent, which isn't there in other countries.

31:49

So the reason why I'm emphasizing this is one

31:51

of the reasons why the Kandonavian countries do so well is

31:53

because they're wealthy, but more importantly, they redistribute

31:56

their wealth and there's an equality there which and also

31:58

feeds into the welfare state. There's

32:00

other wealthy countries out there, the United States

32:03

amongst others, the US amongst others,

32:05

where there's a lot of wealth. So gdpeper a capital,

32:07

the average wealth is huge, but it's not equally distributed.

32:10

So that then also feeds into well

32:12

being in equalities.

32:14

And so totally, particularly well being in

32:16

young people right who are looking at the next generation

32:19

and their economic prospects and so on.

32:21

Exactly and are not seeing the same prospects or

32:23

not as looking forward to the future as

32:25

previous generations were. Just to finish

32:27

the thought, so what could be driving say

32:29

central in Eastern Europe is not just sort

32:32

of a wealth transfer convergence between

32:34

West and Eastern Europe in terms of wealth, but

32:36

then also the foundations were in place in Eastern

32:38

Europe to build a welfare state

32:41

and redistribute this to a large extent so

32:43

that everybody sort of benefits from

32:45

the rising tide, if you will, And I think

32:47

that will probably be the fuel, the main

32:49

driver behind I think my

32:52

youth well being in this place is starting

32:54

to pick up. In addition to the prospect

32:57

of having way more job opportunities opening

32:59

up through the EU.

33:00

In addition to the sort of positive changes that we're

33:02

seeing in the global South

33:04

and in Europe, we're also seeing

33:07

some countries that are pushing to make child happiness

33:09

and national priority. So tell me about

33:12

some of the successes that we've seen in those countries

33:14

that really pay attention to this in particular and

33:16

push for improved child wellbeing.

33:19

So I know for a fact that in Japan they

33:21

have a whole new program around child

33:23

health and wellbeing, and they take this very

33:26

seriously, and part because they're moving

33:28

towards well being more generally, but

33:30

they've also really gotten the importance of

33:33

youth wellbeing today pays

33:35

dividends over time in the later

33:37

lives of these youngsters. You

33:39

see that the focus then goes into

33:41

schooling, the education system, what can we do there, And

33:44

so you find in places like Japan, but also China

33:46

and South Korea and many other places,

33:49

we're all sort of teaching to the test, the

33:51

SATs in the United States, the GCSS

33:53

and the A levels here in the United Kingdom. And

33:56

that's also raising questions because if that's

33:58

the only basis of sort of success

34:00

is to do well on these tests. And so you see

34:03

new programs being developed around say

34:05

Healthy Minds is one of the programs that

34:08

Lord Layard that they heard or mentor

34:10

has really introduced in the United Kingdom, showing

34:13

and teaching people life skills in addition

34:15

to stem science, technology, engineering,

34:18

math. And what we find is that introducing

34:20

life skills makes for happier,

34:22

more balanced human beings. It's pretty crazy

34:25

to think that we'd only focus in on the

34:27

science elements, or perhaps English literature

34:29

and others and not teach people to live

34:32

good lives, especially in the era of

34:34

social media where people need to be given

34:37

a sense of what's happening on that front. A

34:39

good example here on the policy front is actually

34:42

is Manchester, so they have the

34:44

whole school system round. Manchester is part

34:46

of a program called be Well where they are

34:48

introducing essentially life

34:50

skill courses and tracking

34:53

thousands and thousands students across many

34:55

dozens of schools to see what the impact is on

34:57

their well being and ultimately also their performance

35:00

on these testcores. Is to see that if you feel

35:02

better, feel more balanced as youth,

35:05

as a student, is that also improve

35:07

actually your performance. The big question here

35:10

is can we have it both? Can we have great performance

35:12

on our tests and SATs and

35:14

GCSS while being and

35:17

leading happier lives.

35:18

I think that's so important. I mean, it's one of the reasons

35:20

that I started my class at Yale. But

35:23

I agree completely, Like you know, those are twenty one

35:25

year old. You know, if we could just start that earlier,

35:27

when kids are ten, eleven, twelve, I

35:29

think it would make such a difference.

35:31

Anybody with young kids.

35:33

Mine are too young for this, but anybody I know who

35:35

has kids that are now in high school know the impact

35:37

of say high school, primary and secondary school

35:40

is huge and perhaps more influentially than

35:42

the parents have influence on their kids. We

35:44

need to work really with the schools and

35:46

the curriculum to make sure people get life

35:48

skills and learn how to lead fulfilling

35:51

lives.

35:52

As you know, I'd love to see the fundamentals

35:54

of happiness science taught to kids in more

35:56

schools around the world. I mean,

35:59

we do so much to educate young people about

36:01

math and literature. Why aren't we also

36:03

teaching young people the happiness skills they'll need

36:05

later in life. Why aren't we ensuring that

36:08

they know more about how to prioritize friendships,

36:10

sleep, gratitude, and doing good for others.

36:13

If you're a teen, or if you know a teen, you

36:15

should check out the new version of my happiness

36:17

course that's just for young people. It's called

36:20

The Science of well Being for Teens, and you

36:22

can access the course for free at Corsera

36:24

dot org. That's Coursera, the

36:27

word course ra dot org. And

36:29

again the free class is called The Science

36:31

of well Being for Teens. We're

36:34

leaving the World Happiness Report behind for now, but

36:36

we still have some happiness science treats in store

36:39

for you. On the day the report was

36:41

released, the United Nations International Day

36:43

of Happiness, I had the good fortune to

36:45

attend the World Happiness Summit in London. Welcome

36:48

to the WAHASU Live version of the Happiness

36:50

Lab, where

36:52

I got to speak to a medical doctor also

36:55

happens to be one of Europe's top wellness podcasters.

36:57

To introduce my guest, doctor Rungan

37:00

Chatterjee, the host of the Feel Better,

37:02

Live More podcast. Today, we're going to

37:04

be talking about why medical doctors

37:06

need to pay even more attention to happiness.

37:09

Well, how's the audience. Are you all interested in medical

37:11

doctors paying more attention to happiness? And

37:15

you'll get to hear more of my awesome conversation with

37:17

doctor Rungin Chatterjee Next time on

37:19

the Happiness Lab with me Doctor Laurie Santos