What Elmo learned by asking Americans about their mental health

Remember when Elmo went viral in January by asking folks on the internet how they were doing and briefly became the unofficial therapist of X? “The world is burning, Elmo,” an X user who goes by Not the Bee told the usually upbeat “Sesame Street” character. “No amount of tickles can fix this.” “This world is full of pain, anger, violence, disease, power grabbing despots and poverty,” a user with the handle LiveLifeLikeSomeoneLeftTheGateOpen added in a long post.

“The chasm is widening as HG Wells put it, between the ‘haves’ and ‘have nots.’” And those were just two of the 20,000-plus replies. Christina Vittas, Elmo’s social media manager, was bowled over by the unexpected outpouring and said that she was thankful that the Muppet’s simple question “opened up conversations about the serious mental health crisis in our country.

” Six months later, Elmo’s creators at Sesame Workshop have collaborated with The Harris Poll to conduct a more thorough check-in on the state of Americans’ mental health. They conducted 2,012 online interviews in May on an array of topics with a nationally representative sample of Americans 16 and older. The resulting State of Well-Being Report was released this past week.

Among the findings: ■ 27 percent of respondents said their mental or emotional health, or that of someone in their family, was negatively affecting their well-being. That was essentially tied with the 28 percent who were negatively affected by a.