This analysis starts off a little interesting with its observation that intelligence tends to be about solving bounded-context problems (with a known right answer) rather than open-ended problems (D&D called this "wisdom"?), but it is lacking so so so much in explaining why smart people aren't happier or evaluating the premises of the question.

If my teenager gave me this analysis and question, I'd give them 9 more avenues to explore:

1) Is intelligence Kahneman's "type 1 thinking" or "type 2"? Do people act on their thinking or their emotions? (Can you think smart + act dumb and end up happy?)

2) What does being happy have to do with having autonomy and control? (Existentialism)

3) What does happiness have to do with contentment and the scope of what one wants to control, ambition? Attachment (Buddhism)?

4) What does happiness have to do with one's overall outlook of being pessimistic or optimistic?

5) Is there some deeper insight why a widespread religious tradition such as the Judeo-Christian one has a creation story where where "knowledge of good and evil" is inherently problematic?

6) What does happiness have to do with dopamine and the timing or frequency of solving problems of small vs large size?

7) What degree of problems need to be present for an intelligent problem-solver to be happy vs, say, bored, (example: Marvin the "brain the size of a planet" android in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, bored and depressed?)

8) What is the connection between happiness and benevolence, giving vs receiving? Relationships? Why?

9) Why does a socio-economic system based on money-maxxing intended to obtain happiness lead to oversupply lead to demand-generation/creation/marketing lead to unhappiness? And similarly lead to conflict and resulting unhappiness?

I do think it's a question worth re-evaluating in an age of AI promises.

Why aren't smart people happier? (2022)