World Happiness Report Ranks Finland as Happiest Country

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, with other Nordic countries such as Denmark, Iceland, Sweden and Norway ranking among the top 10 countries.

It highlighted how life evaluations among under 25-year-olds in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States have dropped significantly over the past decade, and suggested that long hours spent scrolling through social media is a key factor in that trend.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Associated Press.