The 2026 World Happiness Report found that life satisfaction among those under 25 in some English-speaking countries has fallen sharply over the past decade. Finland was once again the happiest country.
Finland once again showed the world the path to happiness even as heavy social media usage eroded personal well-being among young people across the planet, the World Happiness Report 2026 said on Thursday.
The report, produced by the University of Oxford’s Wellbeing Research Centre in partnership with Gallup and the United Nations, found life satisfaction among under-25s in countries including the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand has fallen sharply over the past decade.
The study is based on surveys of around 100,000 people across 140 countries.
I see where you’re coming from and I actually don’t disagree: the world is shit in many ways and effective communication about it will naturally bum us out, make us anxious, or straight-up depress us.
However, we do have plenty of evidence that surveillance capitalist social media itself is responsible for declines in happiness. We understand the mechanism: the algorithm. The algorithm plays with people’s insecurities to make them anxious and keep them hooked on the apps. This is well understood at least since the late 2010s.
You can check out Netflix’s Social Dilemma, the Center for Humane Technology, Tristan Harris, or Jaron Lanier. In fact, they are the reason I quit surveillance capitalism and I’m on Lemmy.
Fully agree. But I think dopamine hacking and engagement are tertiary to the very real and tangible crises that are surrounding the majority of people.