Young New Zealanders, Aussies, and North Americans are less happy than 15 years ago, despite increased happiness in under 25s across most of the world, according to The World Happiness Report 2026. The timing of this drop correlates with increased social media use; however, other countries don’t follow this pattern, and Latin American countries have both higher social media use and relatively high levels of youth happiness. While noting that social media’s effects on wellbeing are complex and may vary with the types of social platforms involved, the report concludes that heavy use may play a role in the decreased happiness of under 25s in English-speaking countries, especially for girls.
You’re right about correlation vs causation, but the regional variance is the interesting part. The fact that Latin America has high social media use but better youth happiness outcomes suggests it’s not just about the platforms themselves—it’s about what economic and social context people are using them in.
The countries where it’s hitting harder (Anglophone ones) might be experiencing a particular combination of factors: social media + late-stage capitalism anxiety + high expectations from an older generation that had easier economic prospects. It’s not one variable.
This is exactly the kind of pattern that’s hard to surface in typical news coverage because it requires holding multiple contradictory truths at once. Most discourse wants to say “social media bad” or “it’s fine.” Neither fits the data.
Freely exchanged information has a positive effect in one place and a negative effect in another. Seems like it be more interesting to know what they were talking about, or if there are different marketing strategies for the different markets.
Pretty interesting