For years, researchers talked about the “unhappiness hump,” that midlife dip where people in their 40s and 50s supposedly hit peak misery before happiness levels rise again. However, new research suggests that pattern has changed. It’s not middle-aged adults struggling most anymore, it’s young people. Despite having more freedom, connection, and access to opportunities than any generation before them, many are reporting record levels of loneliness, stress, and hopelessness.
It’s a strange twist in the story of well-being. The years that were once seen as the most optimistic now look like the hardest to get through. Experts point to everything from economic pressure and housing insecurity to online comparison and constant bad news as possible reasons. Whatever the cause, one thing’s becoming clear: the myth of carefree youth doesn’t hold up anymore. Today, the unhappiness hump has moved, and it’s hitting people at the very start of adulthood.
The happiness U-curve was basically a law of nature until now.
There’s a body of at least 600 published papers showing that happiness was U-shaped in age, found in 145 countries including developing and developed nations, across every continent. You’d be happy in your twenties, miserable at 50, then happy again in retirement, like clockwork.
This pattern was so reliable, it didn’t matter where you lived or how much you earned, the curve held everywhere. It was one of those rare things in social science that actually worked across all human societies without exception.
That entire pattern has gone in the bin since about 2017.
Now young adults are on average the least happy people, with unhappiness declining with age and happiness rising with age, a change that seems to have started around 2017. The U has flipped into a mountain where life just gets better the older you are.
We’ve completely reversed one of the most solid patterns in human behaviour in less than a decade. Young people used to be living their best lives, now they’re the ones struggling while their parents are sorted.
The happiness gap between young and old is mental.
In the 2024 World Happiness Report, Brits under 30 ranked far lower for happiness than those over 60, which is a complete reversal of what used to be the norm. In other words, your gran’s feeling chipper while you’re just about keeping it together, and the stats back it up.
After decades of being the happiest age group, young adults are now the unhappiest. It’s not a slight dip, it’s a complete inversion where being young has gone from brilliant to absolutely grim.
Mental health stats for young people are a bit scary.
According to NHS data, rates of probable mental health disorders among children and young people have nearly doubled in the past decade, and suicide remains one of the leading causes of death for those aged 10 to 24. Those aren’t small upticks, those are alarm bells screaming that something’s gone badly wrong.
Meanwhile, rates of poor mental health among young men have risen from around 2.5% in 1993 to 6.6% in 2024, while for young women, the figure has climbed from 3.2% to 9.3%. Each generation’s meant to have it better than the last, but this one’s clearly carrying heavier emotional weight than their parents ever did.
Young women are getting absolutely hammered by this.
There’s been a collapse in the wellbeing of young people globally, and especially young women. Whatever’s causing all this misery seems to hit them hardest, with the gap between how young men and women are doing getting wider and wider.
It’s not just feeling a bit down, it’s a proper crisis where young women are reporting anxiety and depression at rates that would’ve been unthinkable twenty years ago. Something specific is wrecking their mental health more than anyone else’s.
Your phone is probably destroying your happiness.
Researchers believe the advent of smartphones and social media may be largely to blame for the collapse in young people’s well-being. Three in four teenagers felt happy or peaceful when they were without their smartphones, and that says a lot.
Today’s young adults have spent much more time in front of screens since childhood than previous generations, with social media and excessive mutual comparison having a particularly negative impact. You’re comparing your normal life to everyone else’s carefully curated highlights all day every day, which is obviously going to make you feel rubbish.
This is happening everywhere smartphones have landed.
This is clearly a global trend, principally for those who are internet-connected, spreading around the world. Studies across African countries showed that those with internet access were likelier to show mental health problems.
It follows smartphone adoption like a plague. Countries where young people don’t have constant internet access aren’t seeing their kids fall apart like this, which tells you everything about what’s actually causing it.
The future looks incredibly bleak when you’re young now.
When talking to Gen Z about retirement, many might laugh because they don’t believe it’s possible for them, watching their parents and grandparents struggle more than they expected. You can’t afford a house, your wages are rubbish, and retirement feels like a fairy tale your grandparents got to live.
Your parents bought a house on one salary and had a pension sorted by 30. You’re 28 with three flatmates, wondering if you’ll ever stop renting, let alone have kids or retire. That’s not being dramatic, that’s just looking at the actual numbers and realising that you’re screwed.
Not every young person is in complete despair, though.
The vast majority of young Dutch people still rate their lives a 7 out of 10 or higher, with older age groups simply being happier. We’re talking about averages here, not every single person your age wanting to chuck it all in.
Loads of young people are doing fine, but the group as a whole is measurably more miserable than they used to be. The trend’s the problem, not that literally everyone’s falling apart at the seams.
Meanwhile, your parents are having the time of their lives
The happiness dip around the midlife crisis around age 50 is now less severe than it used to be. Prime-age people are now happier than the young.
While you’re drowning, your parents are absolutely cruising. They’ve got houses, pensions, and they’re not on Instagram comparing themselves to everyone else every five minutes. The midlife crisis has basically disappeared, while young people have inherited all the misery.
This happened shockingly fast.
This change seems to have started around 2017, meaning we’ve completely overturned a pattern that held for generations in less than a decade. We’ve binned a fundamental pattern of human well-being in about the time it takes to finish school.
That speed alone should be terrifying. We’re not talking about a slow drift over generations, we’re talking about obliterating how happiness works across your entire lifespan in less time than it takes to get a degree.
You’re expected to be perfect at everything all the time.
Performance pressure and social media both play roles in why young adults are increasingly reporting mental health problems. You’re supposed to smash school, have an amazing social life, look fit on Instagram, get work experience, build a personal brand, and somehow afford to exist.
Your parents just had to turn up and do their best at one job. You’re competing with the entire world every second of every day, performing for an audience that never switches off. That constant pressure to be amazing at everything is grinding people down.
Nobody knows how to fix this mess.
Researchers say more investigation will be needed to understand why youth appear increasingly unhappy, though some experts are doubtful about reversing it. Globally, young people have the worst access to youth mental health care.
We’ve got an entire generation in crisis, no real plan to sort it, and the mental health services that might help are basically non-existent. The worry isn’t just that young people are miserable now, it’s that this might be the new normal and nobody’s got a clue how to change it back.
