Americans born in the 1960s and early 1970s report higher loneliness and depressive symptoms, and show poorer memory and physical strength, than earlier generations. Such declines are largely absent in peer countries, particularly in Nordic Europe, where outcomes have improved over time…
— from an article by Joe Rojas-Burke, “Why middle-aged Americans are falling behind peers abroad in various health measures” on ASU.edu, January 2026.
Well, we all suspected this was happening. Middle-aged Americans, falling behind.
I’m one of those middle-aged American, born in the 1960s and 1970s. So I take this stuff pretty seriously. When I was a kid, my parents and teachers somehow gave me the impression that America was on some kind of Yellow Brick Road of Progress, and by the time I was middle-aged, life would be like a pleasant never-ending holiday.
Hasn’t turned out that way, as many Daily Post readers may have noticed.
Earlier this year, journalist Joe Rojas-Burke wrote about this “falling behind” problem, taking as his jumping-off place a recent paper published by Arizona State University psychology professor Frank Infurna and five co-authors whose names you wouldn’t recognize.
From the introductory summary on the Current Directions in Psychological Science website:
We summarize empirical evidence documenting that (a) U.S. middle-aged adults have displayed historical trends of elevations in loneliness and depressive symptoms and declining memory and physical health and (b) this pattern is largely confined to the United States and not observed in peer nations…
You have to pay a subscription fee to read the full article, which I consider a waste of money, because I’m one of the middle-aged Americans who is personally experiencing these psychological symptoms already. Reading the study would only make me more depressed.
The free ‘introductory summary’ was depressing enough.
Joe Rojas-Burke’s article included a couple of short quotes from Dr. Infurna, but I suspect that Mr. Rojas-Burke — like me — had not paid the fee and read the published paper, because he didn’t share any quotes from the study.
The absence of quotes from the published study could, however, be due to the fact that these kinds of academic papers are nearly unintelligible to the average man on the street. Or woman.
(I prefer to use the phrase “man on the street” because “woman on the street” can be misconstrued.)
As mentioned, none of us middle-aged Americans need an academic paper to tell us that we’re sick, lonely, depressed and losing our memories. But the point that Dr. Infurna and his co-authors want to stress is that the rest of the industrial world is doing much better than Americans are. Lower stress, less loneliness, less depression, less medical debt… less debt, period. And paid vacations.
We thought the Yellow Brick Road was here in America. Turns out, it’s actually somewhere else. Europe, for example. Especially the Nordic countries.
So how did they end up with the Yellow Brick Road over there, while we’re stuck with a Pothole-Infested Gravel Road?
If we want to believe Dr. Infurna and his buddies, the main reason seems to be democratic socialism. The Nordic countries have really high taxes on wealthy people, and they use the collected tax donations to support the rest of the people… many of whom are middle-aged, and happy to know that someone cares about them, even if it happens to be a socialistic government.
When you’re a depressed middle-aged American… and of course I don’t mean you, personally, but more like… someone like me…
…if you’re depressed, you’re also likely to be lonely, because no one wants to be around a middle-aged depressed person. And being lonely can make you feel depressed. So it’s like a self-reinforcing cycle of “falling behind”. As we watch the socialists in the Nordic countries getting further and further ahead.
Which is why I’m glad I have a cat. You’re never totally alone if you have a cat. We may not have socialism here in America, but we have a lot of animal shelters with adoptable cats.
Dr. Infurna and his co-authors did not mention cats in their published study, for whatever reason.
Seems a bit silly to publish a study about depressed, middle-aged Americans, and totally forget to mention their cats.
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.