FAU-Mainstreet poll for UN International Day of Happiness has revealing generational findings

If you're happy and you know it, tell a pollster.

Broad majorities of Americans told Florida Atlantic University and Mainstreet Research that they are generally happy and content — but the satisfaction has a notable generational fault line.

The respondents in the survey of U.S. attitudes and good feelings, released ahead of Wednesday's United Nations International Day of Happiness, who gave the most positive of responses tended to be people over the age of 50.

"People are generally happy, and these findings are pretty consistent with what we know," said Carol Bishop Mills, a professor at the School of Mass Communication & Multimedia Studies at FAU. "Overall, people are happy. Overall, people feel like the world is a good place. They're OK in it."

On Wednesday, the UN and research partners issued The World Happiness Report noting that "happiness research shows a more nuanced picture, and one that is changing over time." In the overall rankings of national happiness, the United States landed in 23rd place.

Election 2024: FAU poll has Biden edging Trump, but former president draws major share of younger voters

Americans are generally happy, but there are generational fissures

The findings came in responses to five specific questions in a poll FAU and Mainstreet released this week. The answers found that:

• 60% agreed to varying degrees that in most ways, their lives were close to ideal, while 26% gave an a more negative response.

• 58% said to varying degrees said their life conditions were excellent, while 27% were more negative.

• 60% also said to varying degrees they were satisfied with life, compared to 33% who were not.

• 59% said to varying degrees that they have gotten the important things in life, versus 30% who disagreed.

• 64% said to varying degrees they would change nothing, while 25% disagreed.

Mills said there were two notable revelations at either end of the spectrum of the polling sample of 1,053 American adults.

Sometimes, those 65 and older, who have lived a long life, offer up more somber answers as they reflect on regrets, she said. In this case, they were much more content, perhaps because they realize the choices people make also influence the course of their lives.

"As you age, you get more perspective on what is important, what we should change and what we shouldn't," she said.

Poll shows unrest, unhappiness among the youngest of American adults

By contrast, she said, the poll showed more youthful respondents, those between the ages of 18 and 49, were decidedly dissatisfied.

"Young people not nearly as happy as older people," he said. "Young people are not happy. What we see here is that young people are reporting much greater levels of unhappiness than they have in the past."

There are a number of reasons for the increase, Mills said.

National economic trends that have made home ownership and renting unaffordable have long been known to skew harder against college graduates and people just starting careers and families. Younger college graduates are also more likely to be struggling financially with the debt of student loans.

Individuals in childbearing age are also affected to the largest degree by the restrictions in reproductive rights, and they are the generation that has grown up in the era of school and public mass shootings. On a global scale, many are also more "invested," Mills said, in the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel-Gaza.

"And we also have the social-media landscape, where they are constantly comparing themselves to each other, and the world just may not seem to be an optimistic place for them," she added.

Plus, on social media, younger users are being inundated by all the horrible events that make them unhappy and being reminded about it for hours on end throughout the day, Mills said.

"They can see it, talk about it, ruminate about it, be reminded about it in much different ways," she said, noting that the millennial and Next Generation groups are much more open to talking about mental health and their struggles with depression or anxiety.

True, previous generations displayed angst. In the early 1990s, there was anxiety about the youth of that era being able to match their parents' financial success. In the 1960s, young Americans led the protest movement against the Vietnam War.

That's all the more reason to pay attention to this trend.

"I think, given this poll, it's important for us to keep diving into that and to take those concerns seriously, because typically, if we see this kind of unhappiness now, we'll be interested to see how that plays out over time," Mills said.

How happiness factor may determines who people may vote for in 2024 election

One area where it is playing out, she said, is in politics.

"It's really interesting that happiness is connected with people's actual voting habits," she said.

The poll showed that those between the ages 18 and 34 chose Donald Trump by a landslide, 54.4% to 36.6%, over President Joe Biden. The gap narrowed but still favored the former president in the 35-to-49 bracket, 48% to 43.6%.

The results seem counterintuitive, considering that Democratic positions on climate change, gun-safety measures and reproductive rights seem more popular with younger electorates.

But it's an issue Trump has been playing up, sometimes in jarring ways.

Just this week, Trump posted on social media the Ronald Reagan-era axiom by asking voters if they are "better off than you were four years ago?"

Mills said the posting may have lacked self-insight, given the country was in the midst of the national and global coronavirus economic shutdown.

"Four years ago we were fighting with people over toilet paper in the middle of a Costco aisle and using coffee filters if you couldn't find any," Mills said. "So I did think they are misguided in asking that particular question."

Nonetheless, the point is how people perceive their own situation impacts their voting decisions.

Antonio Fins is a politics and business editor at The Palm Beach Post, part of the USA TODAY Florida Network. You can reach him at afins@pbpost.com. Help support our journalism. Subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Are you happy? FAU poll suggests answer depends on your generation