International Day of Happiness

Happiness at work isn’t just a feeling, it’s the little moments that make the day better. From that perfect cup of coffee, to a shared laugh with colleagues - these are the things that brighten our workdays. What’s your favorite happiness moment at work?  Follow the conversation with the hashtags:  #DayOfHappiness

  LIVESTREAM:  The State of Happiness in 2026 : Wellbeing in the Digital Age.

  Many people blame social media for this fall in happiness, but does this hypothesis stand the test of rigorous scientific analysis? Chapter 1: Executive summary: happiness and social media Chapter 2: International evidence on happiness and social media Chapter 3; Social media is harming adolescents at a scale large enough to cause changes at the population level Chapter 4; Translating scientific evidence into effective policies for health and technology requires care Chapter 5: Adolescent life satisfaction and social media use: gender differences in an international dataset Chapter 6 : Social media, wasting time, and product traps Chapter 7: Problematic social media use and adolescent wellbeing: the role of family socioeconomic status across 43 countries Chapter 8: Internet use, social media, and well-being: the role of trust, social connections, and emotional bonds .                                ...

  Heavy users of social media are at risk, especially in English-speaking countries and Western Europe. In North America and Western Europe, young people are much less happy than 15 years ago. Over the same period, social media use has greatly increased. Many people blame social media for this fall in happiness, but does this hypothesis stand the test of rigorous scientific analysis? What about the rest of the world, where young people’s happiness has not declined relative to adults, even though social media is equally prevalent? There has been much research on this topic. This report does not attempt a comprehensive synthesis of the academic literature – for that, we refer you to the studies listed at the end of this chapter.1 Instead, we started by asking two leading critics of social media, Jonathan Haidt and Zach Rausch, to lay out their case (see Chapter 3). They offer two main types of analysis. First, they report what young people, their parents, their teachers, and employe...

  The relationship between social media and happiness is contingent upon both platform design and the broader cultural and social context in which social media use takes place. Key Insights  Trends in global happiness  • Nordic countries lead the happiness rankings once again. Finland is still in a group of one at the top, followed by a group of three: Iceland, Denmark, and Costa Rica. Sweden and Norway complete the top six, followed by the Netherlands, Israel, Luxembourg, and Switzerland to round out the top ten. Costa Rica’s rise to 4th marks the highest ever ranking for a Latin American country. • Looking at changes in happiness from the 2006–2010 base period to 2023–2025, there are more countries with significant gains (79) than with significant losses (41), among the 136 countries ranked. • Within that period, most of the 21 countries that have gained a point or more on the 0–10 life evaluation scale are in Central and Eastern Europe, reflecting the convergence in E...

So where do digital media products fall on this spectrum? Are they more like bicycles or guns? Key Insights  Is social media use reasonably safe for children and adolescents ? We call this the “product safety question”, and we present seven lines of evidence showing that the answer is no. The evidence of harm is found in: 1) surveys of young people; 2) surveys of parents, teachers, and clinicians; 3) contents from corporate documents; 4) findings from cross-sectional studies; 5) findings from longitudinal studies; 6) findings from social media reduction experiments ; and 7) findings from natural experiments. We show there is now overwhelming evidence of severe and widespread direct harms (such as sextortion and cyberbullying), and compelling evidence of troubling indirect harms (such as depression and anxiety). Furthermore, we show that the harms and risks to individual users are so diverse and vast in scope that they justify the view that social media is causing harm at a popul...

Selecting high-quality evidence is only part of the challenge. “Good evidence” must be paired with the “good governance of evidence”. Key Insights  Professional science organisations that have examined social media and adolescent mental health have reached different conclusions and policy recommendations despite examining similar research. Given their substantial influence on policy and public understanding , it is important to investigate their evidence synthesis practices. Our analysis of three high-profile reports on social media and adolescent mental health finds that they cited broadly similar types of research, yet showed little overlap (<1%) in their sources. We also found considerable variation in how the reports synthesize, communicate, and simplify evidence, including differences in citation accuracy, contextual detail, limitation acknowledgement, and conclusion strength. The stakes of getting these syntheses right are substantial. Poor synthesis quality risks deve...

  Among girls worldwide, non-users and light users of social media were more satisfied with their lives than heavy users. Key Insights  Although many studies have documented links between heavy social media use and poor mental health , fewer studies have explored associations with positive well-being , especially in international datasets. In 2022, the OECD’s PISA survey, conducted in 47 countries, asked over 270,000 15- to 16-year-olds how many hours a day they spent using social media and how satisfied they were with their lives. Among girls, mean life satisfaction was highest among light users of social media (less than an hour a day) and declined with further hours of use. Among boys, this pattern held only in Western Europe and English-speaking countries. The mean differences obscure a notable pattern, especially among boys. Compared to light users, a larger percentage of the heaviest users (7+ hours a day) had both the highest level of life satisfaction (10) and the lo...

The key point is that many social media users wish the Social Media platforms they use did not exist and would even be willing to pay to put it out of existence. Key Insights  Three empirical studies raise serious doubts about whether social media use makes people happy , with implications for valuation, choice, and well-being. The central conclusion is that many people use social media because other people use social media. If social media use were somehow reduced or even stopped, many people would be better off , and they are aware of that fact.  The first study finds that people are willing to pay far less to use  Social Media platforms  than they would demand to stop using them. The fact that people would pay little or nothing to use such platforms raises the possibility that many think they are wasting time when doing so .  The second study finds that people lose welfare from using Facebook. Even after experiencing a happier month without Facebook, howeve...

  Creating more equitable digital environments will require regulating platforms, as well as strengthening the social resources that help adolescents navigate a highly digitalised and unequal world. Key Insights  For adolescents , Problematic Social Media Use (PSMU) is associated with more psychological complaints and lower life evaluation in all 43 countries we examined. These associations are most pronounced in Anglo-Celtic countries and least problematic in the Caucasus-Black Sea region. Globally, the relationship between PSMU and lower wellbeing is stronger among adolescents from lower socioeconomic backgrounds than among their higher-status peers. Socioeconomic differences in the relationship between PSMU and adolescent wellbeing are stronger for life evaluation than for psychological complaints. Socioeconomic gradients for life evaluation are consistent across Anglo-Celtic, Caucasus-Black Sea, Central-Eastern, Nordic, and Western European countries, but are weak in...

 Specifically, we ask: do internet and social media use affect subjective wellbeing not only directly, but also indirectly by altering levels of societal trust and social connection? Key Insights  Previous studies from the World Happiness Report highlight the importance of trust and social connections for wellbeing. This chapter explores how the rise of internet and social media use has affected wellbeing directly , and also indirectly by altering trust, social connections, and emotional bonds. We use four rounds of the European Social Survey (ESS), covering 30 countries over the years 2016 to 2024, to investigate the impact of internet use upon wellbeing. In order to measure the total impact of internet use, we instrument it by M-Lab data on local internet speed. The instrumental variable results reveal a significant negative coefficient on internet use that is not visible in standard OLS estimations. The estimated relationship between internet use and wellbeing varies sharp...

   Most studies on the relationship between social media use and well-being have been carried out in Western, high-income settings, including the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Western Europe. Although valuable, these insights cannot be generalized. Key Insights  Social media use in the Middle East and North Africa is among the highest in the world, although considerable differences appear among countries. Heavy use is more common than in other regions: between 20% and 40% of users reported more than five hours of use in 2023–2024. Social media use is heavier among certain social groups. Gen Z, men, single individuals, less religious and more affluent respondents, as well as those with higher education, are much more likely to be heavy users. On average, heavy social media use (more than five hours per day) is associated with lower wellbeing . Heavy users are significantly more likely to report higher stress and depressive symptoms, and believe they are w...

The 2026 edition of the World Happiness Report , with the latest global happiness rankings powered by data from the Gallup World Poll, examines the striking differences in how young people have fared over time across countries and regions. Examining the association between social media use and wellbeing across age groups and cultures , and drawing on interdisciplinary contributions from leading experts, the 2026 edition seeks to clarify what societies should consider as they navigate a rapidly evolving digital age. In partnership with Gallup, Semafor will convene to explore the latest report insights and what the research reveals about generational change , loneliness and social connection . Leaders across research, policy, media, and technology will examine how institutions and communities might cultivate solutions that prioritize connection over distraction