One of the most critical topics in 21st-century society is happiness.
At the end of the 90s, many of us believed that the lack of resources and the possibility of having what we wanted, the limited access to communication methods, and the difficulty of communicating with those at a distance prevented us from being closer to our loved ones, to create new relationships and be happy. In time, however, technology got a permanent presence in our daily lives, resources became more accessible, and poverty levels decreased worldwide. All of these have shown that when we had fewer methods of communication and when phone calls were more expensive, we had more friends and were happier, even if the standard of living was lower.
The number of psychological disorders in the world is increasing
The World Health Organization published a report in 2022 according to which the number of psychological disorders increased worldwide. Only as a result of demographic changes, the number of psychological illnesses and the consumption of psychoactive substances increased by 13% compared to 2017.
The increase in the number of psychological ailments is an indicator of the decrease in the degree of happiness of people in the world. So we ask ourselves: what is the reason for this?
The countries with the happiest people in the world according to Ipsos
A questionnaire from Ipsos elaborated on 30 countries, addresses the problem of happiness in the world, and shows the following:
67% of adults say they are happy;
People claim that they are very or rather happy in the following countries:
Netherlands 86%
Australia 85%
China 83%
Great Britain 83%
India 82%
France 81%
Saudi Arabia 81%
Canada 80%
What defines happiness?
The Ipsos survey shows that all over the world to be happy people need the following:
- Physical and mental well-being;
- Fulfillment on a personal level (family, husband/wife/children);
- Purpose in life.
Purpose in life is identified by most people as the main source of happiness, somewhat related to other areas of life.
Meanwhile, scientists claim that although at a general glance, we could be grateful for what we have and consider ourselves happy, happiness can be influenced by negative states, and without realizing it we can live unhappily.
Andrew Steptoe from the Annual Review of Public Health claims that people’s happiness depends on a set of factors such as genetics, personality, education, socio-economic status, the social networks they belong to, the way we use our time and what activities we do throughout the day, exposure to stress, marital status, and personality.
The way we see happiness
A very important aspect for each of us is the way society sees happiness. The way we see happiness today is certainly not the same as the way people saw happiness 200 years ago.
Researchers show that between 1700 and 1800, people saw happiness as something that did not depend on them, as something related to luck and fate. Moreover, because the people of those times were indoctrinated and interested in politics, many of them believed that happiness was about being a good citizen.
Later, when the Western civilizations changed the social ideology, and when resources become easily accessible – people came to believe that happiness is something we can control, preserve, and promote. This is how we arrive at the era of the “personal bubble”, where for the sake of protection against controversial situations and negative energy we have come to isolate ourselves too much and suffer from loneliness. We now, encourage social anxiety while suffering from anxiety, and living in depression.
The era of living in the ‘Personal Bubble’
Although happiness studies based on calculations focused on GDP show that the states of Western Europe register a high degree of happiness, The National Library of Medicine published in 2022 a study developed by Lancet Psychiatry that shows that the highest rates of psychological diseases are registered in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil, Western Europe, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East. The smallest rates of unhapiness were recorded in East Asia, Asia Pacific, and Central Asia.
The present study considered the majority of psychological diseases and conditions, including persistent psychological conditions, bipolar disorders, and eating disorders, which have a major impact on the quality of life and can influence the state of health and lead to suicide.
Conclusions
Happiness is something subjective that depends on the moment we live, our personal states, but also on our degree of fulfillment in various areas of life.
Because we are social beings, we communicate, share but also receive information from others. Starting from this, but also from the desire for social integration, we tend to always compare ourselves with others. As a result, after any social interaction, we reflect in one way or another on our lifestyle and personal level of happiness and reformulate the way we see happiness and the good life. This makes us constantly reformulate our personal priorities, and set new goals whether the old ones have been achieved or not.
However, one thing must be remembered: if a country is richer, it does not mean that its citizens are automatically happy. Many times people with the greatest professional success, actors, singers, queens, etc., have ended by suicide.
Furthermore, studies based on questionnaires do not guarantee representativeness, especially since there are businesses with questionnaires, i.e. platforms where people who want to make money from completing questionnaires (who, by the way, very rarely see a penny from this business) sign up. The questionnaires completed by them are sold to different companies interested in market studies, the impact of policies, etc. But how many people with psychological problems have accounts on these platforms? or how many of them complete questionnaires at all? And above all, the questionnaires are made on a sample, which usually does not exceed a few thousand of people. Even more, the Survey Monkey calculator shows that the population of China can easily be represented by a sample as small as 167 people with a margin of error of 10%.
What I want to say is that we all want to be happy, but we have to make the difference between the joy of having our immediate needs met, and the joy of feeling ourselves, in harmony with family, culture, and our own principles of life.
While for some happiness is about cities and activities (see the image below):
For others, happiness is about conquering the world (see the image below).
The idea is to find ourselves in what we do, in the environment we are in, and to feel good.
Sources:
World Health Organization, 2023. Mental health. Available at: who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_1
Ipsos, 2022. What makes people happiest: Health, family, and purpose. Available at: ipsos.com/en/global-happiness-survey-march-2022
Steptoe Andrew, 2018. Happiness and Health. In Annual Review of Public Health. Available at: scottbarrykaufman.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/Steptoe-2018.pdf
Mae Rameer Vanessa, 2023. 11 Happiness Statistics: Stats About Happy People. Available at: www.scienceofpeople.com/happiness-statistics/
Lancet Psychiatry, 2022. Global, regional, and national burden of 12 mental disorders in 204 countries and territories, 1990–2019: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2019. Available at: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8776563/#sec1