Professor Jean M. Twenge, the study’s first author, said:

“Our current culture of pervasive technology, attention-seeking, and fleeting relationships is exciting and stimulating for teens and young adults, but may not provide the stability and sense of community that mature adults require.”

The number of people over 30 who said they were “very happy” has declined from 38% in the 1970s down to 23% in the 2010s.

The equivalent percentage for those aged 18 to 29 has gone up from 28% to 30% over the same timespan.

Teens have also become happier, on average, over the same period.

Professor Twenge said:

“American culture has increasingly emphasized high expectations and following your dreams– things that feel good when you’re young.However, the average mature adult has realized that their dreams might not be fulfilled, and less happiness is the inevitable result.

Mature adults in previous eras might not have expected so much, but expectations are now so high they can’t be met.”

This drop in happiness was already detected in 2008, but only for women.

The reason for the happiness decline may lie in expectations, the researchers explained in The Atlantic. When we're younger, we have high hopes for our future realities. However, as we mature, we may slowly realize that we didn't necessarily achieve what we set out to do, whether that means landing a dream job, having a happy marriage or whatever life circumstance we pictured for ourselves.

"With expectations so high, less happiness in adulthood may be the inevitable result," wrote Jean Twenge, the study's lead researcher and author of Generation Me. "Big dreams feel great when you're an adolescent or a young adult just starting out. But somewhere around their late 20s, most people begin to realize reality isn't going to match up."

Twenge theorizes that a greater sense of individualism may be a factor in why this generation of young people are slightly happier than their predecessors. Society has certainly evolved when it comes to self-expression; conformity is no longer a mainstream expectation. Individuality brings a sense of happiness to young people but it's less of a factor as we grow older. 

That being said, there's no scientific way to definitively conclude why young adults' happiness is flourishing compared to previous years. There doesn't seem to be a generational divide, but rather a cultural shift

Source:

livescience.com; huffingtonpost.com;spring.org.uk

(Image source:Unsplash.com)