Welcome to a breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of

unchanging truth.

For the Colston Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Well this year's World's Happiness Report contained some surprising news.

Despite the near universal presence of social media everywhere in the world,

which studies show strongly correlates to depression and anxiety,

there has been an uptick in happiness for people under 30 in several non-English-speaking countries.

Now on the other hand, English-speaking countries have experienced a palpable drop in happiness.

In the Atlantic, Derek Thompson suggests that one cause for this

drop could be the Western world's increased focused on mental health. In the

past few decades, English-speaking countries, especially America, have been inundated with terminology and

conversations around personal well-being and so-called self-care. In fact, between 1952 and 2016,

the leading handbook for psychological disorders grew by 200 new terms.

That means an increase of not only new words, but also new mental diagnoses.

And of course, mental health has become a focus of broader culture during this time as well.

Many Tik-Tok celebrities are regularly opening up about their personal mental health struggles to their followers.

And teachers often spend as much time instructing students and therapeutic techniques

as they do in mathematics.

And of course, parents are far more quickly to turn to counselors than to pastors or anyone else.

And so this generation that's been fed most on therapy, wellness techniques, and gentle parenting

is also the generation that's most burdened with depression

and anxiety and mental health disorders. Thompson argues that all of the discussion around

...