Young people use their phones to view social media in Sydney, Australia, on November 8, 2024 [Rick Rycroft/AP]By John PowerPublished On 19 Mar 202619 Mar 2026
Social media has played a large role in declining happiness among young people in Western countries, a United Nations-backed report has found.
Heavy social media use partly explains a “worrying decline” in the wellbeing of young people in the West, the latest edition of the annual World Happiness Report said on Wednesday.
In total, 15 Western countries, including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, saw significant declines in youth wellbeing over the past two decades, according to the report.
The trend was not observed globally, with young people in regions covering 90 percent of the world’s population reporting higher life satisfaction than before.
“The trends are caused by many factors, which differ between continents. However, the evidence in this report does suggest that heavy social media use, especially in some countries, provides an important part of the explanation,” researchers John F Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D Sachs, Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Lara B Aknin, and Shun Wang said in an executive summary of the report.
“Outside the English-speaking world and Western Europe, the links between social media use and wellbeing are more positive, and they vary between platforms,” the researchers added.
The report, published by the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre in partnership with Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, cited data from sources including the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and research by the American social psychologist Jonathan Haidt.
Despite the decline in youth wellbeing, Western countries, particularly in Scandinavia, dominated the overall happiness rankings across age groups.
Finland ranked as the world’s happiest nation for the ninth consecutive year, followed by Iceland, Denmark, Costa Rica, Sweden and Norway.
The Netherlands, Israel and Switzerland also made the top 10.
Middle Eastern and African countries had the lowest happiness scores.
Afghanistan reported the lowest life satisfaction, with Zimbabwe, Malawi, Egypt, Yemen and Lebanon also ranking among the bottom 10 countries.
Social media use among young people has been a growing concern for governments amid reports linking platforms to bullying, sexual exploitation and worsening mental health.
Australia last year introduced the world’s first social media ban for under 16s, with plans for similar restrictions under way in Indonesia, France and Greece.
