Excessive social media use linked to declining youth wellbeing — Report

The World Happiness Report has found that higher levels of social media use are generally associated with lower life satisfaction among young people, particularly in English-speaking countries, while moderate use may have positive effects.

The report on Saturday identified a significant decline in youth wellbeing in a group of English-speaking countries—referred to as NANZ (North America, Australia, and New Zealand)—with similar but less severe patterns observed in the United Kingdom and Ireland.

According to the report, “cellphone access to the internet had a positive partial correlation with individual life evaluations in every global region, except in NANZ, where the coefficient was negative and large.”

It added that the UK and Ireland also showed “a significant negative relation, about one-third as large as the NANZ countries.”

The report noted that while internet access and social media use are beneficial in most parts of the world, “these results suggested that social media and internet access were beneficial in most areas of the world, outside the NANZ group.”

Using data from 47 countries in the 2022 PISA survey, researchers found that limited use of the internet—less than one hour daily—was associated with higher life satisfaction compared to no use.

However, “higher rates of use were generally associated with lower life satisfaction, especially for social media, gaming, and browsing for fun, and more for girls than for boys.”

Despite this, the study found no clear link between the number of hours spent on social media and overall youth happiness across countries.

“Differences in youth happiness among regions could not be explained by the number of hours devoted to social media,” the report stated, noting that regions with similar usage levels showed widely different well-being outcomes.

Instead, the findings suggest that how social media is used matters more than how much it is used. Data from Latin America showed that platforms focused on social interaction were more beneficial than those driven by algorithmic content.

“Social media platforms that emphasise communication are better at supporting happiness than those with algorithmic content,” the report said.

The study also found that moderate use of social media aligns with the “Goldilocks hypothesis,” where outcomes are best at balanced levels of engagement.

Life satisfaction, academic performance, and sense of belonging were all higher at moderate usage levels, while excessive use led to declines.

Additionally, the report highlighted that a strong sense of school belonging had a far greater impact on life satisfaction than social media use.

“Within-country standardised correlations… were several times larger for school belonging than for social media use,” it noted.

The report called for closer monitoring of how social media platforms are designed and used, warning that both misuse and platform structure could influence youth wellbeing.

It stressed that promoting healthy online interactions and strengthening social connections offline are key to improving outcomes for young people.

“Getting the right answers… is now more important than ever,” the report said, noting the rapid evolution of social media, artificial intelligence, and digital behaviour worldwide.