Dr Michelle Dickinson: nanotechnologist on the new phenomenon that took over the mid-life crisis

For decades, researchers have documented a curious pattern in happiness, where people tend to start adult life feeling relatively positive, dip into unhappiness during middle age, and then rebound later in life.  

Psychologists called it the 'unhappiness hump' and the rest of us called it a mid-life crisis, referring to a midlife peak in stress, worry, and dissatisfaction that eventually faded as people aged. 

But new research suggests that this once-universal feature of human psychology (and men buying sports cars) has all but disappeared. And the reason isn’t that middle-aged people have found new ways to thrive, sadly - it’s that younger generations are suffering more than ever before. 

A new study published in PLOS ONE has found that the classic U-shaped curve of happiness and its mirror-image hump of unhappiness has flattened.  

The researchers analysed decades of mental health data, including 10 million adults in the United States from 1993-2024, 40,000 households in the United Kingdom, as well as 2 million people from 44 other countries, uncovering a dramatic shift in global well-being trends. 

Their analysis revealed that the familiar midlife rise in unhappiness, once a psychological constant, has vanished.  

Instead, mental ill-being now tends to decline with age, meaning that young people today report the worst mental health, and things generally improve as people get older. 

Older adults’ mental health has stayed roughly the same, and middle-aged adults show little change. What’s new is the sharp drop in well-being among younger generations. 

The causes of this reversal are complex and still being explored, but the study highlights several interlocking factors. 

• The Great Recession’s ripple effects: Economic instability and uncertain job prospects may have left “scarring effects” on younger cohorts entering the workforce after 2008. 
• Underfunded mental health services: In both the U.S. and U.K., access to timely mental health care has lagged behind need, allowing problems to worsen over time. 
• The COVID-19 pandemic: While the downward trend in youth well-being began before 2020, the pandemic accelerated feelings of isolation, anxiety, and hopelessness  particularly among younger people. 
• The rise of smartphones and social media: The study notes growing evidence linking heavy social media use with poorer mental health, driven by constant comparison, fear of missing out, and distorted self-perception. Some researchers have even suggested limiting smartphone access for teens as a possible intervention, though debate continues. 
• Housing and financial pressures: Younger generations face tougher labour markets, skyrocketing housing costs, and rising living expenses  all of which may erode a sense of security and optimism about the future. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News TALKSB.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
So I've got some news for you all. The midlife
crisis is over. It is a thing of the past.
You know that phase we get to in midlife and
we might get a little unhappy and a little grumpy
and then do ridiculous things, but it's not necessarily because
we're happier. There is a really interesting study out that
is talking It kind of explains what you know, why

(00:33):
it's over and to talk us through it. As doctor
Michelle Dickinson, good morning, good morning. So this has been
published where has been published p LOS one, PLS one, okay,
And they have been looking at decades of mental health data.
I think up ten million adults in the UEB.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
Massive me huge, excuse my voice saying recovering from lam jatis,
but ten million adults in the US from nineteen ninety
three to twenty twenty four, forty thousand UK households, two
million families from forty for other countries. And this is
long term research. This is two decades worth of research
on these people looking at their mental lots of things,
but what they were looking at specifically was their mental health.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
And they've discovered that their middle age unhappiness has kind
of vanished.

Speaker 3 (01:21):
Yeah, so not good if you're a car salesman, because
that's when, like you know, by your midlife.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Sports cars sports car years.

Speaker 3 (01:29):
Yeah, so that classic U shaped curve of you being
stoked in your teenage years and then you're making it
to mid life realized where you haven't quite got to
where you want to be, and then being depressed, but
then getting over yourself and being happy in old age.
That was there has been the standard U shaped sort
of happiness sadness curve for a long time. That has vanished.
It does not exist anymore. And you might go, hooray,

(01:49):
we don't have a midlife crisis anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
But depressing the reason was.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
But the reason why it's pretty sad, and that is
because actually the curve has changed to the point where
it is now a line where you get happier as
you get older. But actually our teen's mental health is
the lowest it has ever been. And rather than us
not have a hump at middle age, we're still grumpy.
We're just sadder actually, and have more mental health issues

(02:14):
at a young age.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
And has this got I mean obviously as we meant to.
This has been a very substantial study. But has this
got worse in recent times? Has COVID played a part
of it as so fine and social media playing a part.

Speaker 3 (02:24):
There's some really lovely parts of this study where they've
shown a couple of things that have happened as significant.
One of them was in two thousand and eight, the
GFC has had a ripple effect, who really prevented a
whole bunch of young people at the time being able
to get work. There was a huge recession globally, people
lost their jobs, People went to enter the workforcet for
what they were skilled in and just haven't been able
to do what they were skilled in ever since then.

(02:47):
There was a talk about how there was underfunding of
mental health services, especially for young people right at the
age where they needed it. That was both in the
UK and the US. As their data COVID nineteen accelerated
feelings of isolation, anxiety and helplessness in the youth. They
were really isolated at Detoyt time when we know that
that socialization is needed for good mental health. Smartphones and

(03:08):
smart media have also shown to have an effect where
heavy use has shown poorer mental health in young people
and actually the cost of living, the sort of housing
crisis where there's no hope that they're ever going to
own anything, or you know, they just looking at their
lives going well, what's the point. It's really sad, But
actually it's significant data on a massive data step, and

(03:29):
it's a global trend showing that our young people are
actually really struggling. So while we used to laugh about,
you know, the older guys getting their sports car, we
really should be shifting, according to this study, to making
sure that we invest in good mental health for our
young people, because that curve is not going to get
any better and we can't shift it unless we actually
invest in those places. So what they've said is something
fundamental has shifted in how young people experience the world globally,

(03:54):
and that we really need to be taking a look
at how we invest in those things and what we
expose young people to. I know, there's big campaigns are
on social media and what they're exposed right now in
the algorithms, and this data didn't even look at CHET
and developing relationships with AI, and there's a whole bunch
of stuff happening right now so yeah, the good news
is if you're in your middle age, don't worry. There's
no one happiness hop anymore. It's only going to get

(04:15):
better from here. However, if you do have a young person,
it's really time that we take a good look and
make sure that they're okay and start thinking about how
we make sure that they're not left behind in what
is probably an upside down economy for them. Can't get
on the house and at a cost of living. Jobs
are really scarce right now. Jobs are looking like they're
going to get more scarce with AI at the moment
in this bubble, so lots of things to think about.

(04:36):
It's not great data, especially if your sports car seller,
because that's going to go, but a good time to
reflect on some massive, significant data. It's Plos one. It's
an amazing study and just to reflect on where we're at.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Thank you so much, Michelle, Please look after the boys
for the rest the day. I appreciate you coming in
and using your quota of talking for the day on us.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudken, listen
live to use talks. It'd be from nine am Sunday
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio,