According to the World Happiness Report released Wednesday in association with the International Day of Happiness, Finland, for the second consecutive years, has been considered the happiest country in the world.
However, as far as Americans are concerned, that is not the case.
The United Nations’ report suggests that Americans are unhappy after analyzing the annual list ranking of the overall happiness levels of 156 countries. The report finds it is only getting worse.
For the third consecutive year, the U.S. has gone down the ranking and now ranks at 19, one spot down than last year.
The top three countries of the year are Finland, Denmark, and Norway, while the bottom three are Afghanistan, Central African Republic, and South Sudan.
The U.N. report is based on six crucial variables, which include:
- gross domestic product per capita
- social support
- healthy life expectancy
- freedom to make life choices
- generosity
- freedom from corruption
Since the first report that was released in 2012, America’s current rank shows it is worst this year. In fact, it has never cracked the top 10, said Amy B Wang of The Washington Post in 2017.
Jimmy Kimmel quipped on his late-night talk show, “We finished 19th on the list behind Belgium. The people who feel the need to put mayonnaise on their French fries are happier than we are. Cheer up, everybody.”
Unfortunately, the solution is not that simple for Americans.
The report’s co-author Jean M. Twenge wrote, “By most accounts, Americans should be happier now than ever. The violent crime rate is low, as is the unemployment rate. Income per capita has steadily grown over the last few decades.”
Investigators of the report said America’s unhappiness is more likely due to an “epidemic of addictions” that includes substance abuse, gambling to social media usage, and risky sexual behaviors.
In fact, the director and the co-author of the report, Jeffrey Sachs, said, “This year’s report provides sobering evidence of how addictions are causing considerable unhappiness and depression in the US. The compulsive pursuit of substance abuse and addictive behaviors is causing severe unhappiness. Government, business, and communities should use these indicators to set new policies aimed at overcoming these sources of unhappiness.”
The co-author describes the U.S. as “a mass-addiction society.” He explained that the factors responsible for the United States’ downward trends include addictive behaviors – such as ongoing drug overdose deaths, an increasing rate of depression in adolescents, a staggering high obesity rate, among others.
Sachs wrote, “The prevalence of addictions in U.S. society seems to be on the rise, perhaps dramatically.”
The report said another factor that may be responsible for lower happiness levels among Americans is the increasing amount of time spent by people, especially teenagers, on electronic devices. These findings provide an opportunity to the government and its people to “rethink public policies as well as individual life choices, to raise happiness and wellbeing,” added Sachs. “We keep chasing economic growth as the Holy Grail, but it’s not bringing well-being for our country. We should … stop our addiction to GDP growth as our sole or primary indicator of how we’re doing.”
