Indians are amongst the happiest and most religious young people on the planet today, the world’s first 24-hour music channel has declared in its biggest study of the all new MTV generation.

MTV Networks International’s (MTVNI) Well being Index found that nearly 60% of Indian 16- to 34-year olds are both religious and happy, in line with the happy, well-adjusted attitudes evinced by the world leaders on the youthful joy scale, Argentineans, Mexicans and Indonesians. Seventy per cent of Argentina’s 16- to 34-year-olds and 80% of eight-15 year-old Mexicans said they were happy. On the other hand, fewer than 30% in the US and 50% in the UK accepted that they are happy.

The 14 countries included in the survey were: Argentina, Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan , Mexico, South Africa, Sweden, the UK and the US. The strongly happy vibes in the developing world are laid low by the developed, said Saxton, leaving the channel that once bore the cheery slogan “MTV enjoy” with the dismal realisation that less than half of the world’s youth are at all happy with their lives.

MTVNI’s Youth Trends expert Andrew Davidson said the shining picture of happy youngsters in the developing world underlined the truth of the cliché that “money can’t buy happiness. This is about perceived well being and it shows that even if your country is regarded as undeveloped according to UN indicators, you might still regard yourself as happier than someone in the developed world.”

The MTVNI index found the highly economically developed and well provided Japanese young utterly miserable with only 8% claiming to be happy and a whopping 76% admitting to no religious compass at all.

Graham Saxton, senior vice-president, MTVNI research, said the six-month survey of more than 5,400 youth in 14 countries, illustrated the happiness divide that marks the planet’s young.

A full 93 per cent of Indians said their parents helped them out in life, thus contributing to their sense of well-being in a culture where family time is prioritised, divorce rates low and closeness extends beyond the nuclear family. But in rich Japan, just 54% of the young cited the happy, healthful hand of family as a factor in their lives. Davidson explained that youth in the developed world appeared to be exceedingly anxious about the competition they face in a fast globalising world, notably the growth of new economic powerhouses India and China.

A significant 84% of young Chinese told MTV that they expected their lives to be more enjoyable in the future. One of the more surprising findings, said Davidson, was “the huge difference between countries, it’s just not true that kids all over the world are becoming the same.

You can shop in Mumbai stores that are similar to those in London and you can consume the same sort of music and TV, but you still have very different ideas and ways of looking at the world”.

MTVNI, which launched in India and other territories in the mid-80s on a strongly localised agenda, said the vibrant diversity of the planet’s youth merely vindicated its original strategy just months after its 25th birthday.