We could stop advertising happiness and talk about why children are not as happy as their parents.
Elon Muskista Hannes Kolehmainen came to modern times when the Tesla billionaire tweeted Finland on the world map. The release of the man’s Sanna Marin meme gave birth to a country brand window for a few minutes, hours or days, depending on Musk’s mood and the journey to the next meme.
Like it or not, Finland currently has a prime minister who understands how political communication in the 2020s works. Perhaps that’s part of the reason why Marin is a popular prime minister.
Marin quickly harnessed an individual online phenomenon as a tool for his own communication and tweeted back to Musk an article about Finland as the happiest country in the world.
Ah, a wonderful, even perfect country brand. Indeed, the country brand is probably the most used word in recent days for many people working with public funds.
Perhaps however, it is necessary to grab an grip on the phenomenon and take the discussion to the meta-level, where the happiness of Finns is discussed.
Of course, it is clear that Finnish social media users are the happiest in the world, because no one else muses so much. Only a balanced everyday life that satisfies all basic needs can create a desire to complain about board games or a female politician’s bar visit.
While Twitter can sometimes seem like a cross-section of the people, it is not.
The World Happiness Report forgets one significant segment of its research: under-15s, who make up about a quarter of the world’s population.
Fortunately children have also been asked. In Children’s World’s survey of 35 countries, Finnish children were in the middle of the happiness line.
A broader study in recent years has been a World Health Organization survey of 11-, 13-, and 15-year-olds in 45 European countries and Canada.
In this study, Finnish 11-year-olds were ranked 26th, while 13- and 15-year-olds were ranked 14th and 15th.
In the satisfaction surveys measured in the Pisa survey, Finnish children have been in the 19th place. The results have been published by Unicef, among others.
Finland is not the only exception. Children in states that have succeeded in many adult happiness studies do not share the experience with their parents. The reason is not fully known.
Maybe that too could be discussed in a happy state.
The author is an editor of HS Vision.
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