Derek Thompson

I'm interested in this generational shift.

Yeah.

Like, why does it seem like... Let's pull the Jonathan Haidt argument into this.

In a world where...

young people are more miserable than they used to be, more sad, more anxious, more depressed.

It seems like the benefit of religion has grown, or at least, to be very careful, the association with religion has grown in terms of conferring this happiness benefit.

Why do we think we'd see this change over time?

I agree with everything you just said.

There's one more ingredient that I want to throw in there.

It is true, absolutely, that if you look at the data, married people are happier.

People who are religious or go to temple or church are happier.

It's also the case that people who have more money are happier.

And income correlates with education.

And sometimes those are proxies that you can look at side by side.

But I think this is important because...

This is a cycle that flows two ways.

People who are educated and therefore on the higher end of the income bracket are more likely to get married.

So not only do they have financial security, they also have relationship security.

And that is conferring of happiness or maybe it's a kind of vaccine against misery.

It is also the case, as I believe the sociologist Catherine Eden had some research on this in the 1990s, early 2000s,