There are a number of indicators that, in spite of rising real incomes over recent decades, well-being has not kept pace with prosperity and, in many areas, has been greatly harmed by the way we now live.  For example:

• There were 43 million prescriptions for antidepressants in 2010, up from 9 million in 1991 (source: ONS).  
• Depression rates are three times as high among people aged 30 today than among those in 1970, a large international study has found.  The study (published in European Neuropsychopharmacology) also found that 14% of adolescents suffer from anxiety disorders, characterised by extreme nervousness, social phobia and panic attacks.   "It was rare in the 1970s to see 17 to 18 year olds with depression.  It's now pretty frequent", (Professor Hans-Ulrich Wittchen, quoted in The Times, 5 September 2011).
• 1.2 million people had contact with specialist mental health facilities in England in 2007-07, 10% up on 2003-04.  (Source: Department of Health).
• 10% of 5-16 year olds – about one million children – have a clinically diagnosed mental health problem.  According to the charity Young Minds, that number is rising (Source, ONS, The Times 13 March 2010).
• “Anxiety and depression are on course to double in the space of a generation.  So is obesity”.  (Geoff Mulligan, director of Young Foundation, The Times 8 December 2009).  The use of anti-anxiety drugs rose 8% in the three years to 2010/11 (NHS Information Centre, reported in The Times, 30 December 2011)
• 398,700 claimed Incapacity Benefit on grounds of depression (Department for Work and pensions, August 2010, cited in The Times, 21 April 2011)
• 24% of adults in England were classified as obese in 2007, up from 15% in 1993.  17% of boys aged 2-15, and 16% of girls, were classed as obese, up from 11% and 12% respectively in 1993.  A study of 227 11-year-olds found that the average girl's waistline has gone up from 60cm in 1987, to 70cm  now, while that for the average boy has gone up from 61cm to 70cm over the same period (Shape GB's National Childrenswear Survey, quoted in The Times, 14 April 2011).
• The report by the Good Childhood Inquiry found that 27% of children aged 14-16 said they often felt depressed and 70% of under-16s mentioned anxiety about their physical appearance.  An accompanying NOP poll of what adults think of young people showed that only 9% of adults thought that children were happier now than a generation ago; 55% said they thought they were less happy.  (24 April 2008).
• "It's almost impossible for girls - and little girls at that - not to be negatively preoccupied by self image.  Girls are surrounded by loudhailers proclaiming that they must look and act a certain way to be somehow worthy of acceptance.  Well-meaning mothers unwittingly collude by buying them inappropriate clothing" (Dr Helen Wright, President, Girls' Schools Association, letter to The Times, 7 June 2011).
• The Girl Guides organisation, with 700,000 members, has criticised magazines for publishing 'airbrushed' photos of models, retouched to make them appear thinner or to remove any imperfections.  Liz Burnley, the Chief Guide, said: "From our everyday experiences working with girls and young women, we know how profoundly they feel the pressure to conform to a particular image and how badly they can be affected by these unobtainable ideals".  (The Times, 4 August 2010)
• Half of people aged over 75 live alone.  Nearly half of all older people (about 4.6 million of them) consider television their main form of company.  Over 500,000 older people spent Christmas Day alone in 2006.  (Young report, p 109)
• A million people have literally no-one to turn to and no-one who appreciates them.  (Young report, p 87)
• 11% of women and 18% of men reported a “severe lack of social support”.  (English Health Survey analysis; quoted in Young, p 89).
• 21% of 35-44 year olds feel lonely "a lot of the time" (Relate/TalkTalk survey of 2,000 people, The Times, 29 September 2010).
• A Mintel survey of 760 parents and children (October 2004) found that more than two thirds of children prefer to sit in front of the television or computer on their own rather than play with others. (The Times, 29 October 2004).
• A 2007 Unicef study of child wellbeing in rich countries ranked Britian the very worst of 21 countries surveyed.  Children in Britain were disadvantaged compared with those of other countries in a wide range of measures, including whether their parents had split, whether they had family meals together, whether their peers were "kind and helpful", whether they liked school, felt lonely, had been bullied, and felt satisfied with their lives. (Innocenti Reasearch Centre, Report Card 7.)  The Children's Commisioner for England, Prof. Sir Albert Aynsley-Green, said "The findings are disheartening but not surprising as they echo what children tell me on a daily basis" (quoted in the Daily Telegraph, 14 February 2007).
• A September 2011 survey of hudreds of children by Unicef, focusing in more depth on child wellbeing in the UK, Sweden and Spain, found that the materialistic culture had taken far greater hold in Britain.  "Parents from the UK often bought their children status brands, believing they were protecting them from the kind of bullying they had experienced in their own childhoods.  This compulsive acquision and protective, symbolic brand purchase was largely absent in Spain and Sweden".  "Many [parents and children in the UK] were at a loss when trying to combat the pressures [of materialism] in everyday life".  "Boxes of toys, broken presents and unused electronics in the homewere witness to this drive to acquire new posessions".  "In UK homes, parents were obviously struggling to give children the time they so clearly wanted; in Spain and Sweden, family time seemed to be part of the fabric of everyday life".  
• A YouGov online survey of 2,000 adults found that loneliness was a major worry for 21% of people aged 18-24 (compared with 8% for those aged 55 and over).  A Prince's Trust survey of 2,226 16-24 year olds found that 22% feel isolated "most of the time" and 11% feel "like an outcast" (Prince's Trust YouGov index, October 2010), and 10% rarely or never "feel loved" (Prince's Trust YouGov Index, January 2010).   The Sarah Brennan, chief executive of YoungMinds, said: “The young people we work with tell us that talking to hundreds of people on social networks is not like having a real relationship”.  (Times December 14, 2009).
• 10% of Britons use sleep medication at least three times a week (survey of 40,000 families, sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council, quoted in The Times, 4th March 2011).  The use of sleeping pills rose 3% in the three years to 2010/11, to 10.2 million prescriptions (NHS Information Centre, reported in The Times, 30 December 2011).
• A quarter of British children rarely or never play outdoors, according to research by the Future Foundation (20th January 2011), while in one survey of primary school pupils aged 10 and 11, they admitted spending up to 40 hours a week playing computer games, some staying up to 4am and nearly half playing games with 15 or 18 ratings. 

All this after a quarter century in which real incomes have risen by 70% and government spending on health services, education and various forms of social services have virtually doubled.  “It suggests that the pursuit of ‘consumption’ as an end in itself, regardless of the ‘value’ of the objects being consumed, or of prudent calculation of future needs, may in fact be a powerful generator of personal misery, failure of rational discipline, social pathology and economic disorder and decline”. (Professor Jose Harris, ‘Social evils’ and ‘social problems’ in Britain, 1904-2008, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2009, p 15.