{"id":347519,"date":"2026-03-19T15:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T15:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/347519\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T15:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T15:36:14","slug":"this-country-tops-global-happiness-rankings-for-the-ninth-consecutive-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/347519\/","title":{"rendered":"This country tops global happiness rankings for the ninth consecutive year"},"content":{"rendered":"

Finland<\/a> has ranked as the world\u2019s happiest country<\/a> for the ninth consecutive year, according to the World Happiness Report 2026<\/a>, even as the study flagged a decline in well-being among young people linked to heavy social media use.<\/p>\n

The report, published by the Wellbeing Research Centre, shows Nordic countries continuing to dominate the rankings. Iceland, Denmark, Sweden and Norway are all placed within the top 10.<\/p>\n

Nordic countries remain on top
As per the report, the consistent rankings of Nordic nations<\/a> to factors such as wealth, equal distribution of resources, welfare systems, and life expectancy. It also notes the role of social support and stability in shaping overall life satisfaction.<\/p>\n

Costa Rica<\/a> entered the top five, climbing to fourth position from 23rd place in 2023. Researchers attributed this rise to strong family bonds and social connections.<\/p>\n

“We think it’s because of the quality of their social lives and the stability that they currently enjoy,” said Jan-Emmanuel De Neve of the University of Oxford.
“Latin America more generally has strong family ties, strong social ties, a great level of social capital, as a sociologist would call it, more so than in other places,” he added.<\/p>\n

At the lower end of the rankings, Afghanistan remained the unhappiest country, followed by Sierra Leone and Malawi.<\/p>\n

Youth well-being declines
According to the report, there is a drop in life satisfaction among people under 25 in countries such as the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand over the past decade.<\/p>\n

Researchers found that heavy social media use is a key factor. Life evaluation scores among young people in English-speaking and Western European countries have dropped by nearly one point.<\/p>\n

The study stated that teenage girls are particularly affected. It said that 15-year-old girls who spend five hours or more on social media report lower life satisfaction compared to those with lower usage.<\/p>\n

Young people using social media for less than one hour a day reported the highest levels of well-being, even higher than those who do not use it at all. On average, adolescents spend about 2.5 hours daily on social media.<\/p>\n

“It is clear that we should look as much as possible to put the ‘social’ back into social media,” De Neve said.<\/p>\n

Role of platforms and regional differences
According to the report, platforms with algorithm-driven feeds, influencer content, and visual-heavy formats contribute to lower well-being as they encourage social comparison. In contrast, platforms focused on communication show better outcomes.<\/p>\n

However, the impact varies across regions. In parts of the Middle East and South America, youth well-being has not declined despite high social media use.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Finland has ranked as the world\u2019s happiest country for the ninth consecutive year, according to the World Happiness…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347520,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[114,54450,169578,184,3127,169575,169580,169579,85,46,169581,2586,169576,169577],"class_list":["post-347519","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-costa-rica","tag-costa-rica-happiness-index","tag-economy","tag-finland","tag-finland-happiness-ranking","tag-happiest-countries","tag-happiest-country","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-nordic-nations","tag-usa","tag-world-happiness-report-2026","tag-youth-social-media-impact"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347519","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347519"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347519\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347520"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347519"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347519"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347519"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}