Teens Are Happier Than in the Past — Why Are Adults So Miserable?

"My conclusion is that our current culture is giving teens what they need, but not mature adults what they need," Twenge said. Twenge, the author of "Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident, Assertive, Entitled — and More Miserable Than Ever Before" (Free Press, 2006), became interested in studying changes in happiness after seeing several conflicting papers on the topic. Very quickly, Twenge said, a pattern emerged: The eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders of today are ha