The argument that smartphones and social media are contributing to the rise in teen mental distress is strong. A number of observational and experimental studies show teen anxiety started rising just as smartphones, social media, and front-facing cameras contributed to a wave of negative emotionality that seems to be sweeping the world.

But I have one small reason to question the strongest version of the smartphone thesis. You can find a summary of it on page five of this year’s World Happiness Report, a survey of thousands of people across more than 140 countries. “Between 2006 and 2023, happiness among Americans under 30 in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand declined significantly [and] also declined in Western Europe,” the report says.

Atlantic