It’s been greater than 10 years since the first-ever World Happiness Report was launched in 2012. Since then, the United Nations has launched an annual rating of the world’s happiest international locations: the locations the place the populations are, on common, extra content material than in different locations. In that point, many countries have gone by means of a multi-year pandemic, pure disasters and wars. But the UN and governments throughout the globe stay dedicated to discovering out what precisely makes folks happier to allow them to develop insurance policies to extend wellbeing.
This research, launched on Thursday, March 19, 2026 (the day earlier than World Happiness Day), is predicated on a three-year common of every inhabitants’s evaluation of their high quality of life. It takes into consideration six key components that affect happiness: social assist, revenue, well being, freedom, generosity, and the absence of corruption. It additionally investigates the distribution of happiness inside international locations. Spoiler alert: international locations the place the “happiness gap” is smaller—the place the inhabitants has an identical expertise of and entry to the six components listed above—are usually happier total.
One of the largest takeaways from the 2026 report is the indisputable fact that social media use is contributing to a “drop in wellbeing amongst younger folks in English-speaking international locations,” particularly in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; and especially among girls. In fact, “one international survey of 15-year-olds in nearly 50 countries suggests heavy social media use is associated, on average, with a significant drop in wellbeing among the students surveyed.” While the report finds that younger people who use social media for less than one hour per day report the highest levels of wellbeing, it also shows that those wellbeing levels are higher than for those who do not use social media at all.
This story has been updated with new information since its original publication date. A version of this article was originally published on Condé Nast Traveller UK. Additional reporting by Hannah Towey and Sarah James.
How does the study work?
Below, we talk about lots of the factors that might explain the variation in self-reported happiness between countries globally. The World Happiness Report doesn’t construct its list based on these factors and measures. Instead the people polled provide self-assessments of their own lives by placing themselves on the Cantril Scale. This is basically assessing where you would put yourself on a ladder of self-satisfaction: the top of the ladder, or 10, would be the happiest you can be, while the bottom of the ladder, or 0, would be the least happy you can be.
The World Happiness Report then measures and investigates quite a lot of components that might correlate with the variations in the common happiness of every nation’s inhabitants, which we talk about beneath. While consultants clarify the outcomes utilizing the six components said above, it is very important do not forget that the rating itself is predicated on the solutions given by folks at the time of questioning, so it’s not essentially taken into consideration or mediated by wider cultural, political, or societal incidents.