The things making young people happy

Data shows young adults are sad and anxious 🫠💔. What if we asked them different questions?

Screenshot of recent headlines.

“Young People Are Not As Happy As They Used To Be” according to a New York Times headline from this week.

Shocker? Not really. It’s the latest in a stack of national stories highlighting how miserable young people are these days.

Unconvinced? Here are four more:

• Gen Z already suffering ‘midlife crisis,’ research finds: ‘Not doing well’, NYPost, Jan 2025

• Gen Z are broke and depressed, study says, Dazed, Feb 2025

• Nearly half of teens say social media is bad for youth mental health, report finds, CNN, April 2025

• Poll: Young Americans are more likely to feel lonely, anxious about the future, NBC, April 2025

According to that New York Times piece from this week, which referenced data from a ‘Global Flourishing Study,’ a once-pronounced U-curve showing people were happiest at the beginning and end of their lives “is starting to flatten,” with the flourishing years not kicking in until midlife – especially in the United States.

Just last week, I wrote about what I called A generation in crisis, after the release of sobering findings in the Harvard IOP Youth Poll. That poll found that more than 40% of young people surveyed are struggling financially, and less than half feel connected to a community.

Let’s be clear: I study youth culture and politics and have been writing about this generation’s sense of dread for literally as long as I can remember. And as a member of this cohort myself, I don’t just see the anxiety affecting people my age and younger – I feel it.

As ‘digital natives,’ we were the first generation to grow up almost entirely online – guinea pigs to the consequences of unregulated technology and always at the whim of social media algorithms – and we had our peak adolescent years interrupted by an unprecedented global pandemic. The conditions haven’t been great.

This isn’t a secret – and the plight of Gen Z is not a new phenomenon.

But today I’m giving a call to action.

Instead of continuing to obsess over just how miserable Gen Z is (and rather than blaming ‘screenagers’ for their self-destructive habits), let’s focus on where there’s room for growth. And let’s be intentional about letting young people tell us what that should look like, committed to working together to co-create solutions.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying we should ignore problematic statistics or hide troubling research about Gen Z’s mental health reality. All of these data points are crucial.

But beyond asking young people how bad they feel about themselves (yes that is a line of questioning used in many youth-focused surveys), how about a question on what would make them feel better? Let’s ask when or where in life young people feel the most confident, and how often they felt good about themselves, too. In trying to better understand Gen Z, we can and should include forward thinking questions in our surveys, focus groups, and listening sessions that allow us to envision a brighter future.

Struck by the NYT headline, I reached out to my Gen Z network today with one simple question: What makes you happy?

Here’s some of what I heard:

• My friends, knowing that I do not know everything, going with the flow, having zero expectations, excitement toward figuring out what the future has to offer

• My friends and family

• Pilates

• Photography

• Sunshine

• Self improvement

• My faith in Jesus

• My friends and chosen family

• When I receive high grades and good grades

• Creating art with my best friends for our indie theatre company

Yes, some of these are a little cringe, others cliché. Most illuminate that this generation prioritizes community, connection, and knows from their own experience that nothing is guaranteed.

My point here is that we can learn a lot about young people by asking them what gives their life meaning, what motivates them, and what they are excited for down the line. It doesn’t always have to be so doom and gloom.

Noteworthy reads

• Gen Z men and women take home very different salaries and the gender pay gap is a problem from the start, Sara Braun for Fortune

• Opinion: Gen Z Is Politically Old Before Its Time, David Drucker for Bloomberg

• Denounced, Cursed, and Ghosted: What Harvard’s Antisemitism Report Found, Maya Sulkin for The Free Press