World Happiness Index

Heavy social media use contributes to a stark decline in well-being among young people, with the effects particularly worrying in teenage girls in English-speaking countries and Western Europe, according to the World Happiness Report 2026 published Thursday. The annual report, published by the Wellbeing Research Centre at the University of Oxford, also found that Finland is the happiest land in the world for the ninth year in a row. Other Nordic countries such as Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway ranked among the top 10 countries. But it highlighted how life evaluations among under 25-year-olds in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have dropped over the past decade, and suggested that long hours spent scrolling through social media is a key factor in that trend.

Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and the Netherlands rounded out the top five in the rankings, which are based solely on the answers people give when asked to rate the quality of their own lives

The World Happiness Report 2025 is scheduled to be launched on 20 March globally to celebrate the event

The Day of Happiness is celebrated every year on March 20. This day motivates people to take a pause and reflect on what truly brings joy and happiness in life

Bhutan has slipped to No 97 in the World Happiness Report. To all appearances, though, both the Finnish and the Bhutanese are equally happy

The World Happiness Report uses data from interviews of more than 350,000 people in 95 countries, conducted by Gallup

A large part of our life is now transactional. Happiness, too, is being treated as a means to profit

Nations such as Pakistan (80), Nepal (99), Bangladesh (110) fared better than India

India is ranked seventh among the biggest losers in the happiness ranking in the past one year