Young people are becoming less happy than older generations as they suffer “the equivalent of a midlife crisis”, global research has revealed as America’s top doctor warned that “young people are really struggling”.

Dr Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, said allowing children to use social media was like giving them medicine that is not proven to be safe. He said the failure of governments to better regulate social media in recent years was “insane”.

Murthy spoke to the Guardian as new data revealed that young people across North America were now less happy than their elders, with the same “historic” shift expected to follow in western Europe.

Declining wellbeing among under-30s has driven the US out of the top 20 list of happiest nations, the 2024 World Happiness Report revealed.

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    Cost of living is so much worse now than in 2010s

    Yeah, that’s what I was saying. Everything went crazy during the pandemic and never got close to recovering.

    I’ve seen the argument made that Trump became president in a big part due to social media. He grew his cult following thanks to Twitter while Obama was president. So the problems caused by Trump could also be tied back to social media.