The depths of our unhappiness have reached new highs around the world
If you think the world is running amok and that life is getting harder just about everywhere, you are not alone: A new poll shows that global unhappiness is reaching a record high.
The recently released 2022 Gallup Global Emotions poll shows that unhappiness — the combination of feelings of stress, sadness, anger, worry and physical pain that people feel every day — is at its highest point since the firm started doing this survey in 2006.
But the most interesting thing about this new poll is that the rise in global discontent is not a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, rising inflation, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, former President Trump’s coup attempt last year or other disturbing world events.
The global rise of unhappiness started in 2011, long before the pandemic, and has been increasing steadily ever since, Gallup’s
comparative figures show.
This year, 33% of the people responded “Yes” when asked whether they felt anger, stress, sadness, worry or physical pain the day before, up from 24% in 2011, the survey shows. The poll included 127,000 people in 122 countries.
Gallup CEO Jon Clifton says it may be no coincidence that we see growing civil unrest around the world. According to the 2021 Global Peace Index of the Institute for Economics and
Peace, there was a 244% increase globally in riots, general strikes and antigovernment demonstrations between 2011 and 2019; and there is no sign that this trend is abating.
Whether it’s the huge crowds that stormed into the palace of ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa in Sri Lanka or the massive anti-government demonstrations in Latin American countries, growing numbers of people seem to be taking to the streets to show their discontent.
Gallup’s Clifton speculates that the rise in unhappiness results from a combination of growing poverty, loneliness, decaying communities and the scarcity of work.
Those are certainly factors that help explain the trend, but there’s much more than that.
While poverty has risen in some parts of the world since the 2008 financial crisis, on average we are living longer — more comfortably — and suffering less than our ancestors did. Imagine going to the dentist 200 years ago, when there was no anesthesia.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the rise of global frustration has something to do with the erosion of values and of people feeling a lack of purpose in life, resulting from the decline of religions and ideologies in recent decades.
Religions are too obsessed with rituals, at the expense of promoting values that give a meaning to people’s lives. And schools are failing to teach altruism, tolerance and other values as much as they should.
Carol Graham, a senior fellow at The Brookings Institution and author of several books on happiness, told me that a lot of the current global malaise is largely related to the growing disparity between good and bad jobs. Many people, especially those who are young and noncollege-educated, don’t see a bright future for themselves.
“For the less-skilled kids, the labor market future, and therefore their lives, look very uncertain,” she told me.
Social-media platforms make things worse because they paint a picture of people’s lives that is falsely positive, she added.
“Teenagers on average post pictures on Instagram when they’re having fun. They don’t post pictures of themselves studying for a physics exam,” she says. Seeing those pictures, many young people who are anxious about their future often feel that something is wrong with them.
At a July 6-8 University of Oxford Conference on Wellbeing, some of the world’s leading happiness experts founded the
World Wellbeing Movement.
Income alone is not enough, the Movement said in a manifesto.
Countries should measure wellbeing, and governments, civic groups and private companies should “put wellbeing first.” The United Kingdom, New Zealand and other countries are already demanding that their finance ministers condition public expenditures on whether they help improve well-being and have produced detailed manuals to that effect.
I applaud these ideas. Increasing economic growth to reduce poverty should continue to be every country’s primary goal, but we need additional targets to help make the world a happier place. Otherwise, we’ll set a new record of unhappiness next year.
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