Since 2012, the World Happiness report has tracked this elusive emotion. The latest study was released this week, and as reported in the New York Times, things are not looking to bright for young people in the U.S.
Primarily due to the responses of people under 30, the U.S. dropped out of the top 20 happiest countries, down to number 23, a significant drop. The survey covers approximately 143 countries and evaluates happiness on the responses of people to the surveys, which include ranking happiness on a scale of 1-10. According to the organization, this is the first time that the results have been broken out by age. And while happiness among people 60 years and older places the U.S. within the top 10 countries, the drop among younger people over the past decade has been precipitous.
Issues such as climate change, economic potential, and political turmoil are affecting happiness, but one of the biggest areas of unhappiness is feeling isolated and alone. In part, this is driven by social media and the “compare and despair” nature of endlessly scrolling through other people’s curated lives and feeling terrible. Or, particularly at the high school level, feeling ostracized or criticized online creates sometimes crushing anxiety.
Thus, not surprisingly, according to the report, young women begin to feel a significant decline in happiness around age 12, and the gender gap only increases from ages 13-15, with girls significantly less happy than boys. While it’s a simplification of the report, the essence for tweens and teens is that school and home environments play a major role in how happy or unhappy kids are.
So, how does this affect the toy industry? On some level it doesn’t because we’re already in the happiness business. Through play, there are already options for building community and positive peer-to-peer interaction. Keep going. I was recently with a group of teenagers who were playing Exploding Kittens’ Throw Throw Burrito, and the joyfully raucous pandemonium reminded me of my own rambunctious childhood with friends.
I’ve also been talking with parents around the country, and they consistently report that kids who are not on social media, who have access to phones but have only limited use of them, are more engaged with their peers, pursuing things like music or writing that bring them pleasure and are generally happier and more adept at interacting with people—sometimes to an impressive degree.
As an industry, we can amp up our promotion of play and its benefits. We can help provide experiences that allow kids to have new experiences and to be in community with others. And we need to remind ourselves that we are in the happiness business. There’s so much that’s out of our control, but getting kids playing is what we do best.
What do you think?
