Culture and Society
PUBLISHED
The World Happiness Report 2026 has arrived, and this year’s focus is on social media. It argues that heavy social media use is linked to a severe drop in wellbeing among young people in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, especially among girls.
The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.Yet the relationship is anything but straightforward. Many other regions with comparable levels of heavy social media use, such as the Middle East and North Africa, have seen no such decline in youth wellbeing.
The researchers suggest this divergence may come down to the type of platform being used. Those designed to foster genuine social connection show a clear positive association with happiness, while platforms driven by algorithmically curated content tend to show a negative association at high levels of use.
“The global evidence makes clear that the links between social media use and our wellbeing heavily depend on what platforms we’re using, who’s using 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,” Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Director of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre, Professor of Economics at the University of Oxford, and an editor of the World Happiness Report, said in a statement.
“Beyond the complexity, it is clear that we should look as much as possible to put the ‘social’ back into social media.”
The report arrives at a moment when more and more countries are banning or considering restrictions on social media for minors. Its findings suggest that a nuanced approach might be required, and sweeping bans on social media might bring more harm than good. The key to achieving this subtle balance, the report says, will lie in the decisions being driven by high-quality data, not dogma.
Drawing on data from 140 countries, the analysis for the World Happiness Report is carried out by an international team of researchers from a range of academic backgrounds, and published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford in partnership with Gallup, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, and an independent editorial board.
Once again, Nordic countries top the charts of the happiest-ranked nations. Finland claimed the top spot for yet another year, followed by Iceland, Denmark, and Costa Rica, with Sweden and Norway rounding out the top six. The Netherlands, Israel, Luxembourg, and Switzerland filled out the top ten.
The fortunes of the US have risen ever so slightly, lifting its place from the world’s 24th-happiest country in last year’s report (its lowest-ever position since the report began) to the 23rd-happiest country in 2026. It remains, however, a long way from its peak of 11th place back in 2012.
In fact, the 2026 rankings mark the second year in a row that none of the English-speaking countries are in the top 10: New Zealand (11th), Ireland (13th), Australia (15th), the United States (23rd), Canada (25th), and the UK (29th). That’s especially low for the UK, which was 23rd in last year’s report.
Of course, social media is not the only driver of these trends. The report points to a combination of wealth, its equal distribution, a healthy life expectancy, and a sturdy welfare state as key factors in Nordic countries' sustained dominance at the top of the rankings. Costa Rica's remarkable rise is attributed to the strength of family ties and social connections.
At the foot of the rankings, nations in zones of major conflict and instability remain the world's unhappiest. Afghanistan ranked last once again, followed by Sierra Leone and Malawi.
The full report can be read here: https://www.worldhappiness.report.
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