Arthur C. Brooks

I came back in 2019 and the world changed while I was gone.

A lot of people know what I'm talking about right now, who are watching us right now.

In 2008,

university life was better than ordinary life.

You're falling in love, you're making friends, you're studying crazy new ideas that are blowing your mind.

And in 2019, I came back and there was more depression than I'd ever seen.

There was more anxiety, there was more loneliness, there was more anger.

on campuses, and I thought, this is crazy.

This is worse than the life outside that I would see.

And I said... In 2019, that's pre-COVID, right?

That's pre-COVID, but boy, it sure was a hard time in the lives of university students, and for that matter, for people under 30.

Something happened during that decade.

So, you know, I'm a scientist.

I'm going to be like Sherlock Holmes here.

I started getting on the case, right?

Exactly right.

Okay, sum it up for us.

What happened?

So what happened was something changed in the way that people were living that somehow put a blockage in their happiness.

Now, you and I both know that happiness is a combination of three things.