Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor focused on the science of happiness, argues that rising depression and anxiety — especially among under-30s — is best explained by a growing collapse in perceived meaning. He attributes that shift to lives increasingly lived through screens, with less real-world relationship time, less boredom and mind-wandering, and a cultural tendency to treat complex human problems as if they have technological, engineered solutions.
Brooks frames happiness as a three-part construct: enjoyment, satisfaction and meaning, and says survey evidence points to meaning as the component most in decline for younger adults. He discusses how meaning can be cultivated through open-ended questions, close relationships (including deep friendship as well as romantic love), transcendence through faith or contemplative practice, service to others, and regular exposure to beauty — including moral beauty.
On technology, he describes smartphone use and social media as leveraging dopamine-driven learning systems, creating compulsive checking and withdrawal-like behaviours. He calls for phone-free school days, argues that online environments amplify conflict and negativity, and claims heavier internet use is associated with reduced empathy and increased dark-triad traits. He also proposes practical “protocols” for reducing device dependence: device-free first and last hours of the day, phone-free meals and bedrooms, disabling most notifications, and periodic multi-day “tech fasts”.
Brooks adds that suffering and negative emotions are normal and can be meaningful when met with reduced resistance, warning against quick-fix promises and encouraging deliberate, long-term changes in how people live and connect.
Brooks argues that platforms built as "complicated" technological systems cannot solve "complex" human needs such as loneliness, and says increased time on social media is associated with greater loneliness. He presents this as a consistent finding from social science rather than an isolated effect.
Read this moment →Arthur Brooks argues schools should prohibit phones throughout the school day, including lunch, and says US states allowing broad access are failing to act despite evidence of harm. He says the main obstacle is political and moral reluctance driven by parent and student pushback.
Read this moment →Brooks cites researchers Jean Twenge and Jonathan Haidt for claims that young adults report lower rates of marriage, cohabitation, sex and being in love than in prior generations. He argues technology-mediated matching and interaction can work against the "complex" experience of forming romantic bonds in real life.
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