Re:Americans' life ratings reach record high
by maroonblazer on Sunday July 25, 2021 @09:25PM
(#27954531)
The study appears to factor in short-term vs long-term happiness. Specifically, they ask respondents to project forward 5 years into the future:
>For its Life Evaluation Index, Gallup classifies Americans as "thriving," "struggling" or "suffering" according to how they rate their current and future lives
Another problem is because of hedonic adaptation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_adaptation
People might actually feel happier when moving from a miserable state to a better state compared to being in a good state all along.
So we are seeing the effects of people being grateful that recovery is happening, not that the world has already recovered.
What's happening for at least a decade is that the sources of hedonistic happiness are becoming more accessible(tasty food, booze, entertainment, substances), while things that used to bring eudaimonic happiness are either becoming unaffordable (property ownership, raising kids, financial independence), unpopular (long-term relationships, religion) or economically uncompetitive (small businesses).
The media is doing its best to distract people and convince them that they don't want all those long-term things, but you can't really fool the human nature. The tensions are rising, although it may all look great on paper.
A more interesting and objective metric would be the suicide rates, but I couldn't easily find anything more recent than 2019.