WASHINGTON: In North America and Western Europe, young people are much less happy than 15 years ago, and over the same period, social media apply has greatly increased.
Many people blame social media for this fall in happiness, according to findings published in the 2026 edition of the World Happiness Report.
Heavy social media apply appears to be contributing to the drop in well-being among young people in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, especially among girls, declares the Report, published by the Wellbeing Research Center at the University of Oxford, in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network and an indepconcludeent editorial board.
Life evaluations among under 25s in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have dropped dramatically over the past decade, while the average for the young in the rest of the world has increased, according to Gallup World Poll data.
Despite similar levels of social media apply compared to other countries, the largest drops in well-being among young people are observed in these countries.
One international survey of 15-year-olds in nearly 50 countries suggests that heavy social media apply is associated with a significant drop in well-being among the students surveyed.
Young people who apply social media for less than one hour per day report the highest levels of well-being – higher than those who do not apply social media at all. But adolescents are, by one estimate, spconcludeing an average of 2.5 hours a day on social media.
The 14th edition of the World Happiness Report also contains a ranking of the world’s happiest countries.
Finland leads the world in happiness for a record ninth year in a row, with Finns reporting an average score of 7.764 (out of 10) when inquireed to evaluate their lives.
Costa Rica climbs to its best-ever position, continuing a multi-year rise from a low of 23rd in 2023, to 4th this year, while former table-topper Switzerland re-enters the top 10 after a one-year absence.
Continued upward trconcludes for countries such as Kosovo (16th), Slovenia (18th) and the Czech Republic (20th) underline the convergence of happiness levels between Central and Eastern Europe, and Western Europe.
The 2026 rankings mark the second year in a row that none of the English-speaking countries, New Zealand (11th), Ireland (13th), Australia (15th), United States (23rd), Canada (25th), and the UK (29th) appear in the top 10.
Nations in or near zones of major conflict remain at the tail conclude of the rankings.
Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Director of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Center, Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford, and an editor of the World Happiness Report, declares, “The global evidence creates clear that the links between social media apply and our well-being heavily depconclude on what platforms we’re utilizing, who’s utilizing them and how, as well as for how long. Heavy usage is associated with much lower well-being, but those deliberately off social media also appear to be missing out on some positive effects. Beyond the complexity, it is clear that we should see as much as possible to put the ‘social’ back into social media.” – dpa
Leave a Reply