The Declining Mental Health Of The Young And The Global Disappearance Of The Hump
Shape In Age In Unhappiness
David G. Blanchflower, Alex Bryson, and Xiaowei Xu
NBER Working Paper No. 32337
April 2024
JEL No. I31,I38
Covid as well perhaps as a huge technological change – the coming of social media. The former
generated high levels of unemployment and underemployment among the young especially and,
at least in the UK, the latter particularly impacted the young that were the group with the highest
incidence of Covid (Blanchflower and Bryson, 2022). These two shocks appear to have lowered
the well-being of those under age forty-five relative to older groups and especially those under
twenty-five. This appears to be a phenomenon that has hit females and whites particularly hard.
The technology shock involved the rapid rise in smartphones and internet access, starting in 2011.
The deterioration in the mental health in English speaking countries appears to be correlated with
the rise in screen time (Blanchflower and Bryson, 2024c). Of interest is what has happened to Ushapes in countries that have not had such big rises in cellphone and intern
RICHARD WILSON 