Gen Z is facing early ‘mid-life crisis’ due to social media, US Surgeon General warns

Young people are facing an early ‘mid-life crisis’ in part caused to their constant exposure to social media, America’s top doctor has warned.

Dr Vivek Murthy, the US Surgeon General, was commenting on a global wellbeing survey that found 15 to 24-year-olds are increasingly less happy than older generations.

Allowing children to use social media had been akin to giving them medicine that was not proven safe, he said, and the failure of governments to regulate it was ‘insane’.

This year’s World Happiness Report, an annual barometer of wellbeing in 140 countries, had for over a decade shown younger people were happier than their elders.

Children are typically happier until they reach 15 years old when social media use skyrockets

Older generations don’t suffer from the same unhappiness, with a report finding that people older than 30 living happier and more fulfilling lives

But in 2017 this switched in the US – and in 2024 the declining wellbeing among under-30s has driven the US out of the top 20 list of happiest nations.

While this is not yet the case in Western Europe, the gap has narrowed and the same ‘historic shift’ is expected to follow in the coming year or two.

It was once a well-established notion that ‘kids start out happier before they slide down the U-curve towards a mid-life crisis before it picks up again’, Professor Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, editor of the report, said.

‘To think that in some parts of the world children are already experiencing the equivalent of a midlife crisis demands immediate policy action’.

The report does not suggest what is causing the change, but Dr Murthy has blamed in part the huge amount of time teenagers spend on social media.

He cited research that found US teens were spending nearly five hours a day on social media on average and a third were staying up until midnight on weeknights on devices.

Speaking to The Guardian, he said he was still waiting data that proved the claims made by social media giants that their platforms were safe for children and teenagers.

He called for urgent legislation to reduce harms to youngsters from social media, including limiting or eliminating features such as like buttons and infinite scrolling.

British people under 30 were 32nd in the rankings, behind nations such as Moldova, Kosovo and even El Salvador, which has one of the world’s highest murder rates.

Comparatively, British over-60s made it into the top 20 of the world’s happiest older generations.