Gallup data from 97 countries finds no simple link between social media time and wellbeing

Gallup’s State of the World’s Emotional Health 2026 report, released with the World Health Summit, compares low, moderate and high social media users across 97 countries. Moderate use was associated with better outcomes on many wellbeing measures, while high use was linked to lower life evaluation only in high-income countries.

What happened

Gallup surveyed people aged 15 and older in 97 countries, where a median of 81% of adults use social media. It grouped respondents as low users (none, or under 30 minutes a day), moderate users (30 minutes to under two hours) and high users (two hours or more), and compared their reported emotions and life evaluation after accounting for age, income, health, education, social support and other factors.

Compared with moderate users, high users were more likely to report anger, loneliness, sadness, stress and worry, and less likely to report being treated with respect. Their life evaluation did not differ significantly overall. Low users had lower life evaluations and were less likely to report enjoyment, smiling or laughing, and feeling well-rested. Gallup describes the differences as generally small, and wellbeing did not steadily worsen as time on social media rose.

In high-income countries, high use was generally associated with lower life evaluation than moderate use; in the United States the gap was about 0.3 points on Gallup’s 0-to-10 scale. There was no significant difference in Germany or the United Kingdom, and no such association in countries outside the high-income group.

A median of 47% of people aged 15 to 29 were high users. Among young people, social media use tracked with lower life evaluation in 16 countries, including the United States, Canada and Australia, and with higher life evaluation in 10 others, including Mexico, Poland and Ireland.

Why it matters

The findings are observational: they describe associations, not cause and effect. Gallup measured time spent, not whether use was problematic, which platforms people used or what they saw. The data do not show that a given number of hours harms or helps any individual, and they do not cover young children.

For practitioners, the report is a reminder that screen time alone says little. What a client does online, and in what setting, is likely to matter more than the number of hours, and the same pattern of use may relate to wellbeing differently from one country to the next.

What happens next

Almost 40 countries are weighing age-based limits on children’s social media use, according to the release. Gallup notes that it does not evaluate those policies or social media’s effects on young children.

Source

• World Health Summit / GallupMore social media time does not always mean worse wellbeing, new Gallup data from 97 countries suggest