World Happiness Report highlights social media’s negative impact, ranks Finland as happiest country

HELSINKI (AP) — Heavy use of social media is contributing to a sharp decline in young people’s well-being, with particularly worrying effects among adolescent girls in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, according to the World Happiness Report 2026 released Thursday.

The annual report, published by the Center for Wellbeing Research at the University of Oxford, also reveals that Finland is the happiest country in the world for the ninth year in a row, while other Nordic countries such as Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway rank among the top 10 countries.

But the study highlights how the life ratings of under-25s in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have fallen significantly over the past decade, and suggests that long hours spent scrolling through social media are a key factor in this trend.

Costa Rica moves to 4th place; Nordic countries remain in the lead

A new entry into the top five on the list is Costa Rica, which climbed to fourth place this year after climbing the ranks from 23rd place in 2023.

The report attributes this to improved well-being due to family and other social connections.

“We think it’s because of the quality of their social lives and the stability they currently enjoy,” said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, an economics professor at Oxford who directs the Wellbeing Research Center and co-edits the World Happiness Report.

“Latin America more generally has strong family ties, strong social ties, great social capital, as a sociologist would say, more than anywhere else,” he added.

The report says that the continued position of Finland and other northern European countries at the top is linked to a combination of wealth, its fair distribution, a welfare state that protects people against the risks of recession and healthy life expectancy.

As in previous years, nations located in or near major conflict zones remain at the bottom of the rankings. Afghanistan is again ranked as the unhappiest country, followed by Sierra Leone and Malawi in Africa.

The country rankings were based on responses given by around 100,000 people in 140 countries and territories, asked to rate their own lives. The study was carried out in partnership with analytics firm Gallup and the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

In most countries, around 1,000 people are contacted by telephone or face-to-face each year.

Particularly vulnerable adolescent girls

Respondents were asked to rate their lives on a scale of 0 to 10. Among under-25s in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, this score has fallen by almost a point over the past decade.

The report says the negative correlation between well-being and heavy social media use is particularly concerning among adolescent girls. For example, it says 15-year-old girls who use social media for five hours or more reported a decline in life satisfaction, compared to others who use it less.

Young people who use social media for less than an hour a day report the highest levels of well-being, researchers say, higher than those who don’t use social media at all. But teens spend an average of 2.5 hours a day on social media.

“It is clear that we should seek to reintegrate the ‘social’ into social media as much as possible,” De Neve said.

Algorithmic feeds and influencers considered guilty

The researchers noted that in some regions of the world, such as the Middle East and South America, the links between social media use and well-being are more positive – and that young people’s well-being has not declined despite heavy social media use.

The report says this is due to many factors that differ between continents, but concludes that heavy use of social media in some countries is a significant factor contributing to the decline in young people’s well-being.

He said the most problematic platforms are those that offer algorithmic feeds, feature influencers and where the main material is visual, because they encourage social comparisons. Those who use platforms that primarily facilitate communication are more successful.

The 2026 rankings mark the second year in a row that no English-speaking country is in the top 10. The United States is in 23rd place, Canada is 25th and Britain is 29th.

The report, which focuses on social media, comes at a time when more countries have banned or are considering banning social media for minors.

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Grieshaber reported from Berlin.