Young and glum in the Anglosphere
- Joanne Jacobs
- 2 days ago
- 1 min read
The Anglosphere is glum, according to the 2026 World Happiness Report, write Neil Howe and Christian Ford on Demography Unplugged. Scandinavians -- especially the Finns -- are happier than ever, while people are significantly less happy in the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Sad young people are harshing the English-speaking world's mellow.
No English-speaking country ranked among the world’s 10 happiest nations. New Zealand placed 11th and Australia 15th, while the US ranked 23rd, between Saudi Arabia (22nd) and Poland (24th).
Happiness scores are up in most countries around the globe -- except for the Anglosphere, where young people are distinctly less chipper, write Howe and Ford.
In other surveys, young Anglospherians also report "lower life satisfaction and growing distrust in institutions," they write. “Generation Hopeless" is "down on democracy and drawn to populism.”
Young people are happier now than 20 years ago in a majority of countries, but not in North America or Western Europe, according to the report.
Heavy social media users seem to be less happy. "The PISA study of 15-year-olds in 47 countries shows that those who use social media for over seven hours a day have much lower wellbeing than those who use it for less than one hour."
Greg Lukianoff tweets: "So, maybe teaching young people the mental habits of anxious and depressed people in hopes that it would motivate them to save the world wasn't the best idea?"
As Scott Galloway points out, 40 years ago he attended UCLA when the acceptance rate was around 70%. In 2025, UCLA had a 9% acceptance rate. The issue that many of those in the anglosphere is that opportunity hoarding, legacy bias, tiger moms have made growing up harder for those who aspire to be in the upper middle class. Of course, the institutions that are suppose to help those young citizens of those anglosphere countries have been showed to be complete failures (think academic/career counseling).
Amen to Lukianoff's comment:
"So, maybe teaching young people the mental habits of anxious and depressed people in hopes that it would motivate them to save the world wasn't the best idea?"