this post was submitted on 21 Mar 2024

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Young people's happiness has 'fallen sharply' for Canada and U.S. in global rankings (www.cbc.ca)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 7 months ago

gee I wonder why. not much to be happy about these days.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 7 months ago

There is no happiness when our lives are treated as a commercial resource and we are expected to be grateful that the corporate machine is running the country instead of popular vote. America, and soon Canada, have the least accessible, worst health care system in the world. Think of all the untreated people, not the successful high tech surgeries, and you will understand the metric by which we fail.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 7 months ago

Do you're saying it's a surprise that mortgaging people's futures didn't cheer them up?

Quelle surprise.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 7 months ago

I mean.... gestures vaguely

[–] [email protected] 15 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Looking at trash and litter everywhere you walk, seeing crumbling infrastructure all around both in the city and suburbs, lack of decent transportation, sky high prices on homes and common goods. Homeless being more prominent and visible, it all adds up.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Being told if you are under 35 just give up on home ownership meanwhile some older generations have 2-3 homes plus a cottage. Housing shortage followed by mass immigration. Our healthcare is stressed to the point of privatization. We were told go to school to succeed just to still be paid terrible wages and be in debt. The future looks bleak for many young canadians who just want an average life. .

[–] [email protected] 18 points 7 months ago

Our healthcare is stressed to the point of privatization.

I'd say it's more 'conservative premiers have sabotaged healthcare to the point it's breaking for their for-profit healthcare friends' is slightly more accurate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

homeless people are not more prominent than landlords.

seriously what the heck ?

do you mean more vulnerable and always in the public space because they have no home ?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 7 months ago

Yeah no shit, everybody's broke and the world's on fucking fire, the only people who are happy are the "fuck you, I got mine" crowd.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago

I wonder why…

[+] [email protected] -11 points 7 months ago (3 children)

Can we do a similar survey, but only with young people who don't consume social media all day?

We may not be able to control external forces that could make us unhappy, but we have 100% control over the digital garbage that we know leads to unhappiness.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I am not struggling because of social media, I am struggling because I'd damn near need to be a millionaire to own a home. I am struggling because of stagnant wages. I am struggling because grocceries costs and rent keep increasing.

I won't lie, the digitalization of social relationships has had an impact, but they are far from the only issue. I could even argue that more young people could be more in person social if it were cheaper to go out to eat/recreate or if we didn't have to work as many hours to cover the cost of living.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 7 months ago

but they are far from the only issue

Of course, it's not a one-factor issue.

And I agree that struggling to eat, find shelter, and to make a decent living are certainly factors that can contribute to unhappiness.

But since we know that social media use is a major factor for unhappiness and stress, we'd probably want to account for that in any study or survey.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 7 months ago (1 children)

From other news sources, I gather that "young" in this case means ~30, not teens. That is, people who are out of school, have jobs, and many of whom are at least considering things like home ownership and having kids.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Wouldn't make a difference in the context.

In 2018, Stats Canada reported "regular social media use" to be over 90% for age groups between 15 and up to the mid-30s. Ages 30-34 apparently use three or more social media platforms.

This could be different in 2024, but considering how social media platforms, including newer ones like TikTok, have exploded, I'm not sure that the usage dropped.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago (2 children)

These numbers also mean very little without usage time. There is a big diference between 15 minutes of social media a day and 4 hours of social media a day.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

They mean even less if a causal link isn't established, or even if there is a link but the issue is better explained by other factors. There are many signs people use social media to compensate for something missing in their lives (such as lack of connection, inability to find like-minded people close by, etc.), but no proof I've yet heard of that it's the root cause of unhappiness. The closest to that is maybe people falling into maladaptive patterns of seeking content that would enrage or depress them, but I imagine at least as often it's going to be people using it as an escape from a difficult reality. We should be discussing why reality is so difficult to manage and in more extreme cases, why talking about mental health issues is so scary that so many people need to escape via alcohol, drugs, screen time, etc.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 7 months ago

There is a big diference between 15 minutes of social media a day and 4 hours of social media a day.

The average daily use in Canada is 2 hours, with variations on how often people are actually being pinged or checking social media.

The more it's used, the higher the anxiety, stress, sleep quality, and happiness are affected, but these negative effects are felt for the majority of social media users, regardless of use time.

I'd also argue that FOMO contributes to just as much harm to mental health as active use of those platforms.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

So are you saying ignorance is bliss, or that the problems don't actually exist?

What a dumb comment.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 7 months ago

Studies already show that social media use is a major factor in people's stress and unhappiness. So why not adjust the survey to take that into account?

The results may still be the same, but at least you'd know whether it's a contributing factor.