How can we possibly be so miserably unhappy? For a nation that supposedly “has it all”, we sure are depressed. In America today, suicide rates are soaring, antidepressant use is skyrocketing and virtually every new survey that comes out shows that we are deeply dissatisfied about something. But we live at a time when there are more things to enjoy than ever before.
When I was growing up there was only a handful of television channels to choose from, but now there are hundreds. We have more movies than we could ever possibly watch, more books than we could ever possibly read, and the greatest video games ever made are at our fingertips. With all of the entertainment that surrounds us, you would think that Americans would be happier than ever before, and yet we continue to become even more depressed.
Everywhere I go, I see people that look like they have had the life completely sucked out of them. So why is this happening? The following are 21 signs that Americans are the unhappiest people in the entire world…
#1 A scientific study that was just released found that U.S. adults are becoming less happy over the years…
“Adults over 30 are less happy than their predecessors,” concludes a study published online Thursday in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science, which examined happiness data from more than 50,000 adults, gleaned from the General Social Survey, carried out by NORC at the University of Chicago, a nonpartisan, independent research organization, which has collected information about American adults since 1972.
From 2010 to 2014, adults over 30 had an average happiness score of just 2.18, compared with 2.24 a decade ago. That’s significant considering happiness scores were measured on a tiny scale from just 1 to 3, with 1 being “not too happy” and 3 being “very happy.”
#2 Young people are also becoming increasingly depressed. Just check out what one study conducted at San Diego State University discovered…
Americans are more depressed now than they have been in decades, a recent study has found. San Diego State University (SDSU) psychology professor Jean M. Twenge analyzed data from nearly 7 million adolescents and adults from across the country and found that more people reported symptoms of depression — including sleeplessness and trouble concentrating — compared to the 1980s.
Twenge’s findings show that teenagers in the 2010s experience memory trouble 38 percent more often than their 1980s counterparts. Teens are also 74 percent more likely to have trouble sleeping and twice as likely to see a professional for mental health issues. College students in the study reported feeling overwhelmed by academic and personal demands 50 percent more often than their 1980s counterparts.
#3 Back in 1987, 61.1 percent of all Americans reported being happy at work. Today, 52.3 percent of all Americans say that they are unhappy at work.
#4 A different survey found that 70 percent of all Americans do not “feel engaged or inspired at their jobs”.
#5 One survey of 50-year-old men in the U.S. found that only 12 percent of them said that they were “very happy”.
#6 The number of Americans diagnosed with depression increases by about 20 percent each year.
#7 According to the New York Times, more than 30 million Americans take antidepressants.
#8 Doctors in the United States write more than 250 million prescriptions for antidepressants each year.
#9 The rate of antidepressant use among middle aged women is far higher than for the population as a whole. It is hard to believe, but right now one out of every four women in their 40s and 50s is taking an antidepressant medication.
#10 Compared to children in Europe, children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants.
#11 In America today, there are 60 million people that abuse alcohol and there are 22 million people that use illegal drugs.
#12 America has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire planet.
#13 One recent poll found that 71 percent of Americans are dissatisfied with the direction that things are going in this country.
#14 America has the highest divorce rate in the world by a wide margin.
#15 America has the highest percentage of one person households on the entire planet.
#16 100 years ago, 4.52 people were living in the average U.S. household, but now the average U.S. household only consists of 2.59 people.
#17 According to the Pew Research Center, only 51 percent of all American adults are married. Back in 1960, 72 percent of all adults in the United States were married.
#18 The suicide rate in the United States is now the highest that it has been in 25 years.
#19 According to one absolutely shocking study, 22 military veterans kill themselves in the United States every single day.
#20 The suicide rate for Americans between the ages of 35 and 64 rose by close to 30 percent between 1999 and 2010. The number of Americans that are killed by suicide now exceeds the number of Americans that die as a result of automobile accidents every year.
#21 The rate of suicide is highest during the holidays that come at the end of the year, and 45 percent of all Americans say that they dread the Christmas season. The following comes from a Psychology Today article…
We are told that Christmas, for Christians, should be the happiest time of year, an opportunity to be joyful and grateful with family, friends and colleagues. Yet, according to the National Institute of Health, Christmas is the time of year that people experience the highest incidence of depression. Hospitals and police forces report the highest incidences of suicide and attempted suicide. Psychiatrists, psychologists and other mental health professionals report a significant increase in patients complaining about depression. One North American survey reported that 45% of respondents dreaded the festive season.
So why in the world is this happening?
We have one of the highest standards of living in the world and we are surrounded by massive amounts of entertainment.
Yet we are severely depressed.
And during the “happiest time of the year” we get even more depressed.
Clearly something has gone very wrong.
Even more entertainment is not going to fix us, and neither will more drugging.
So what will finally make us happy?
Please feel free to tell us what you think by posting a comment below…
Michael Snyder is a writer, speaker and activist who writes and edits his own blogs The American Dream and Economic Collapse Blog. Follow him on Twitter here.
Dr Phil D’s diagnosed this disease as inequity. The cure for it is removal of unbridled monopolizing Capitalism.
There are far too many causes for this unhappiness to list in one missive, but I can start by naming some of the major ones I have experienced firsthand.
1) Electronic Soup – We are surrounded by a constant barrage of wireless communications from cell towers. Our bodies are run by electromagnetic energy and the immersion in this electronic soup causes a number of maladies.
2) Entertainment – Much of what passes for entertainment is pure crap. I wouldn’t watch it with somebody else’s eyes. Even the entertainment that is good has an edge to it that can cause anxiety.
3) The “News(?)” – We are bombarded by consistent bad tidings through the various news organizations creating an atmosphere of anger, anxiety, fear and stress.
4) Money – We have become a society of wage slaves and debt drones, living check to check. We are shown images of all the wonderful trinkets that will supposedly make our lives better, yet most are garbage.
5) Fault Finding – One of the biggest miseries is the continual blame of others for our problems leading to a failure to take accountability for our own actions within our lives. This leads to a feeling of helplessness and rage against the supposed perpetrators of these problems.
6) Critical Thinking – is not taught in schools any longer. Students are taught to regurgitate answers for testing purposes, yet have no idea how to critically think their way through complex issues.
I could go on, but I will leave it at this. We need to stop blaming others and take control of our lives and our destinies. We need to look beyond the nonsense and actually consider solutions to the various maladies that beset us.
The reasons I don’t like the holidays is both sets parents no longer alive. Income tax work sheet must be done. Clean behind refrigerator and clean the coils. Pay insurance on house and cars. Traffic congestion. On Marriage: many men avoid marriage, because if a divorce takes place women are favored by the courts even if the woman is whoring around. men basically get ripped off. Men: make sure the gal you choose is working with good pay and don’t raise kids (get vasectomy) in case there is a divorce later. Women: best not to breed, keep your job, men ditch women also, so why be stuck with kids?. Alcohol and drugs: getting worse since the 70’s , which is why me and hubby are not involved in community, quit voting decades ago, refuse to join anything and are social recluses. People you thought were decent, many times aren’t.
That was certainly depressing.
Simple: the world is run by those that want to destroy your access to your own soul.
“They” (TPTB) are dark empty beings that can’t stand the light, so they want to deprive you of the possibility of accessing it yourself.
There is no ‘soul-food’ or love in any amount of materialism or vacuous ‘entertainment’, so they keep your body and mind busy with too much unfulfilling labour, backed up with all kinds of fears, (i.e. ‘the stick’) and distracting pointless “leisure activities” (i.e. “the carrot”).
This is just basic psychology, which has always worked (and continues to work) on most of the people most of the time, while the ‘dissenters’ who speak out about the truth are silenced or gotten rid of.
Simply put, they are parasites, and we have many even at low levels, not just TPTB.
We are reaching a serious tipping point, as all societies do, and the next few years will determine our quality of life.
Either the parasites destroy the host in their mindless greedy pursuits, or the producers bring them under control.
It’s really that simple.
The decision is up to us.
I agree, there are many dark empty and parasitic beings on all levels and I’ve unfortunately encountered far too many of them in the course of my lifetime.
My reference to “TPTB” wasn’t about politicians, etc, or anyone in the public eye, but to the hidden hands that have been running the whole show for millennia.
Only the awakened can (and will) shine the light upon their darkness. I have seen it work many times but we all need to do our bit.
Entertaining ourselves to death.
The constant tyranny of an unlawful so called government.
Communication with others is almost nonexistent due to the silly ideas of political correctness.
The infighting among religions and the idea of racism.
Probably the majority of people have no spiritual connection anymore. Religion is a man made idea that avoids the reality of our being here.
Then again maybe it is just a shift in the level of so called reality.
Very good, and I agree, we have allowed ourselves to become…UNNATURAL.
We pay ALL the bills and have no say on how the money is spent = extortion/theft/slavery.
We live our lives working at jobs we often dislike constantly indoors, in cubicles, behind SCREENS, (computer,TV,phones) and demands of your hours on the job is being increased,
( work from home and be on call 24/7 via the phone, laptop = more slavery)
Families are limited, one parent, no grandparents. Kids are demanding with no respect or appreciation.
People have no respect on the street and are losing their humanity because of it. Dog eat Dog.
And, to top it off, we have been in deep denial of this slow turning for decades and reality is hitting us like a brick wall.
But their is HOPE.
We are waking to the acknowledgment of these problems, which now gives us ammunition for resolution.
Einstein once said finding the problem is more important than the solution, but as other commenters have indicated we have those within the system who favor this chaos to better their control and wealth.
Our society at its simplest form is made up of producers and parasites.
Our denial has allowed the parasites to grow so large and many that it is now threatening the very life of the host and the parasites do not possess the intelligence to care. Their only instinct is to MULTIPLY, even if it means their own demise.
So you see, even if we adopt the cowards way out and go along to get along we will lose in the end anyway. THE CURRENT FORM OF LIFE IS NON SUSTAINABLE.
Our denial has lead us down the wrong road for a long time and its a great distance back, and will take time, but even the longest journey begins with the first step.
Every passing moment is another opportunity to turn everything around.
Anything that CAN be done, can be UNDONE.
1) The medical establishment scared people into staying out of the sunshine or slathering their skin with toxic sunscreens so that they are suffering from Vitamin D deficiency, which leads to many chronic health issues and depression.
2) Psychotropic drugs make people emotionally numb and pharmaceuticals compromise health in a myriad of ways. Chronic illness and obesity are rampant, even in the young, and out of control vaccination has destroyed people’s immune systems. It’s hard to be happy when you’re sick all the time.
3) A failed legal system that punishes small time criminals and drug users and lets the big crooks like the banksters and pedophiles go unpunished. This creates bad morale on all levels of society (except those who benefit.)
4) Income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, and the thousands of small hidden fees that are levied for everything, plus inflation that is denied by the government, keeps most working people underwater with no relief in sight.
5) The “entertainment” the author speaks about is moronic, insipid, and increasingly violent. Chronic TV and movie addicts become numb to the mayhem.
6) Our real food choices are shrinking rapidly. 100% safe food is almost non-existent, and most of our water is contaminated with fluoride or chemical toxins.
7) Most Americans don’t realize they suffer from cognitive dissonance and very few even know what it means. They know they are unhappy but don’t know why. They sense the media and government are lying to them but they can’t discern the truth, so they are confused and angry 99% of the time. They are divided by race, religion, sexual orientation, political leanings, lifestyle and numerous other falsely constructed dualities.
8) Our celebrations are hollow, commercialized and based on lies. Christmas, Columbus Day, Holloween… it’s all bland, pointless and boring.
9) They are spraying us with coal ash from planes and manipulating the weather so that raging fires, drought, floods, storms and weather disasters are now the norm instead of the exception. The government is waging weather warfare on the citizens of this country (and many other countries as well) and the taxpayers are footing the bill.
8) NONE of this is by chance or accident, it’s all intentional.
We should count our lucky stars we don’t have bombs dropping on our heads like the people of Vietnam, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Most Americans support wars of aggression and still believe our military are heroes, even though they kill more innocent civilians than enemies, and then come home and kill themselves, 22 per day on average. Of all the things to be unhappy about, unjustified wars of aggression against countries that have done nothing to threaten us is what makes me the saddest.
The unpunished criminality from big corporations and government; the pharmaceutical contol over our health; pesticided food and the control of our food by big corporations; the arquitecture of our cities designed to isolate people from real street culture; the poisoning of our environment by government and big corporations; the distortion of the reality done by media, movies, games, news; excessive taxation on our most basic possession, house, health insurance, food, land; “we didn’t started the fire” the permanent state of war… and more and more and more and more…
Your accurate identification of the problems within the comments is your strongest asset.
Reading through I see and hear the same theme that is relevant.
GREED and CORRUPTION have infiltrated every aspect of our society for the pursuit of money and or power.
All of your comments are about the same thing. THE TRUTH.
The truth many fear speak in public or especially to authority but MUST be addressed for our own collective existence.
As one commenter said, “we are lucky we don’t have bombs falling on our heads”
This is becoming a bigger threat than we realize when our denial and apathy has enabled a rouge and aggressive government to become the world biggest troublemakers.
The world will only tolerate so much and are not going to separate any of us for goodness sake.
Our totally corrupt leaders will make us ALL look complicit because… well, we are not doing anything about it, so hence we condone it.
It’s time we took a stance and demand that we, as a nation of laws, demand that they apply equally to everyone, or they are no good for anyone.
Time for the top criminals to be held responsible for their own criminal activity.
If we go along to get along we lose in the end anyway because this corruption eats itself after all others have been devoured.
It is a non sustainable form of government. Just like Rome it is now beginning to collapse from within.
It’s up to us. We can stick our heads back in the sand and pretend it isn’t there and many lives will be lost, or we can make a stand and say NO MORE. We don’t have to live the crash to know this is a wreck.
Take heart people we are waking up , i was once thought of as a tin foil hat wearer and conspiracy nut but now i have people asking me whats going on , slowly but surly they are awaking . Stay strong folks your friends and family will need you when crap hits the fan . tc .
WELCOME TO GREENLEAF DISPENSARY. We sell/Deliver MEDICAL MARIJUANA and HEMP OIL to all states in the US and WORLDWIDE .(From Cali)
Discreet and 100% guaranteed shipping service with tracking number .
Secured mode of payment/ Best reputation with buyers/ only topshelf available/ Grade A meds/ Overnight express delivery through UPS , FedEX .
Contact through email or text 203-350-9039/ [email protected] .
ORDER TODAY WITH DISCOUNT AND GET OUR NEW YEAR FREEBIES ………..