Do We All Seem More Unhappy?

Answer seems like “yes,” but it’s an entirely individual discussion.

Here’s a rare (?) David Brooks column that begins with a bunch of Taylor Swift quotes, and then you get into this deep dive of Gallup-ish content:

The negativity in the culture reflects the negativity in real life. The General Social Survey asks people to rate their happiness levels. Between 1990 and 2018 the share of Americans who put themselves in the lowest happiness category increased by more than 50 percent. And that was before the pandemic.

The really bad news is abroad. Each year Gallup surveys roughly 150,000 people in over 140 countries about their emotional lives. Experiences of negative emotions — related to stress, sadness, anger, worry and physical pain — hit a record high last year.

Gallup asks people in this survey to rate their lives on a scale from zero to 10, with zero…