Neal Freiman

The World's Happiness Report, released yesterday for 2026, delivered an unhappy verdict around social media.

Too much scrolling time appears to be taking a sledgehammer to young people's well-being in English-speaking countries and in Western Europe.

The happiness report, conducted each year by Oxford's Wellbeing Centre, Gallup, and the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network, said that among under-25s in English-speaking and Western European countries, life evaluation scores have dropped by almost one point over the last decade on a scale of 1 to 10.

They also found that teenage girls are most at risk from social media fueled unhappiness.

15-year-old girls who use social media for five hours or more a day reported a drop in life satisfaction compared to those who use it less.

It's contributed to a perplexing but sustained decline in happiness

For people in English-speaking countries, for the second year in a row, no English-speaking country appears in the top 10 on the World Happiness Report.

The U.S.

is 23rd.

The U.K.

dropped to 29th, its lowest ranking ever.

Australia is 15th.

It used to be fourth.

And Ireland, 13th.

So who is happy?

No surprise here.

Finland and the rest of the Nordics, which continue to dominate the leaderboard.

Finland was the happiest country for the ninth time in the last decade, while other Nordic countries like Iceland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway were all in the top 10.

Toby, what stood out to you?

Yeah, and the report also says we should be watching what's happening in Australia.