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01/11/2006:

"Unhappiness has risen in the past decade"

There's more misery in people's lives today than a decade ago - at least among those who will tell you their troubles.

So says a new study on life's negatives from the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center, which conducts social science research for government agencies, educational institutions, non-profit organizations and private corporations.

The researchers surveyed 1,340 people about negative life events and found that the 2004 respondents had more troubles than those who were surveyed in 1991, the last time the study was done.

"The anticipation would have been that problems would have been down," says Tom Smith, the study's author. He says good economic years during the '90s would have brought an expectation of fewer problems, not more.
news.yahoo.com

The unhappiness index is up. Go figure.