World Happiness 2026 shakeup
Finland keeps the top spot and Afghanistan remains last in the new World Happiness Report, but the headline worry is a sharp decline in teen well‑being—especially among girls in Western countries—linked to heavy social‑media use (timesofindia.indiatimes.com). The report also records notable shifts among established economies—Canada fell from 18th to 25th and the U.S. shows growing youth distress—signalling social-trust and digital-life headwinds (chch.com) (firstcoastnews.com).
The World Happiness Report 2026 was released on March 19, 2026 as a special edition themed “Happiness and Social Media.” (ox.ac.uk) The rankings in this edition cover 147 countries and are calculated from Gallup World Poll life-evaluation data averaged over a three‑year window (2023–2025) to smooth short-term swings. (visualcapitalist.com) The volume was edited by John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Jan‑Emmanuel De Neve, Lara B. Aknin and Shun Wang and is published by Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre in partnership with Gallup and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network. (worldhappiness.report) The report organizes its evidence across nine chapters, including a chapter titled “Social media is harming adolescents at a scale large enough to cause changes at the population level” and a dedicated chapter on gender differences in adolescent life satisfaction. (worldhappiness.report) Quantified patterns in the report show steep life‑satisfaction gaps by social‑media exposure in adolescent girls — with the highest average satisfaction among girls who use social media less than one hour per day and markedly lower satisfaction among girls using platforms five to seven or more hours daily. (gadgets360.com) The authors note policy relevance: they document calls for stronger protections for under‑16s online and include a statistical appendix plus an interactive WHR dashboard where researchers can access the Gallup‑based data and explanatory factor breakdowns. (ox.ac.uk) Since the 2006–2010 baseline period the report also records that 79 countries showed significant gains in average life evaluations when compared with the 2023–2025 period. (adaderana.lk)
