World Happiness Report 2025
. . . and looking ahead to WHR 2026 . . .
Prof Lord Richard Layard
Editor, World Happiness Report
In World Happiness Report 2024, we presented evidence of a concerning decline in the wellbeing of young people in Western industrialised countries.
Obviously, a child’s wellbeing matters for the same reason that any individual’s wellbeing matters. But wellbeing among children and adolescents is also critical since it is the best predictor of how happy said child will be in their subsequent life – with a higher predictive power than the qualifications which they might obtain.
There has been much debate about the reasons for such a downward trend, with many competing theories and policy recommendations. However, one explanation has captured public and political attention more than any other: social media.
Also in 2024, Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist at New York University’s Stern School of Business, published The Anxious Generation, arguing that the decline in youth wellbeing is driven by a transition from a play-based childhood to a phone-based childhood. The book has been a best-seller and sparked heated debate, both in academia and the wider world.
As editors of the World Happiness Report, we have followed this debate closely, concerned that rigorous science was being overshadowed by shallow media narratives.
In World Happiness Report 2026, we see an opportunity to bring all sides of the debate together to establish the facts, clarify disagreements, and provide decision-makers with a balanced assessment of what we know, what we don’t know, and what should be done.
We’re encouraging researchers from across the world to submit chapter proposals focusing on the relationship between social media and subjective wellbeing before the deadline of Sunday 15 June. Full details are available on the World Happiness Report website.
Previously: 'happiness'
orcid.org/0000-0002-0192-8965
