For years, researchers have studied how happiness changes throughout different stages of life.
Studies continue to show that our experience of happiness changes dramatically with age.
Research has long shown that people tend to feel least happy in the middle age, while younger and older individuals report higher life satisfaction.
This trend often called the "U-bend of happiness" or the "hump of despair," has been observed repeatedly in most of the countries.
Though the age when people feel most unhappy differs but the overall patterns remain the same.
But recently this usual pattern of happiness has shifted and a new study has revealed something entirely different.
A new study published on August 27th in the journal PLOS ONE by economists David Blanchflower, Alex Bryson and Xiaowei Xu found that young people around the world are now reporting higher levels of unhappiness than any other age group.
Dr Bryson described the change as moving from a "hump" of midlife misery to a "ski slope," with unhappiness starting high among the young.
The researchers noticed the change through a long-running US servey called the Behavioural Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).
From 2009 to 2018, the usual pattern showed middle-aged people as the most unhappy.
However, between 2019 and 2024, these patterns shifted as unhappiness levels for middle-aged and older adults stayed the same, while it rose sharply among younger people.
As long-term studies available suggest people generally feel most unhappy in the middle age, there is worrying possibility that Generation Z, who are already reporting high levels of unhappiness while still young, could experience even worse levels of misery as they grow older.