Global Analysis of Perceived Social Media Effects on Well-Being

What impact do people think social media has on their well-being? To answer this question, we adopted a global perspective, analyzing 7.1 million observations from 191,672 users across 182 countries. Users believed social media had a small but negative impact on their well-being: Whenever respondents felt that social media affected their current well-being, their well-being in that moment was reduced by 2% compared with their average. The size of this perceived effect differed across users and countries. Whereas people in several northeastern regions, such as Russia and Kazakhstan, believed social media benefited their well-being, negative perceived effects appeared most prominently in the Anglosphere (United Kingdom, United States, New Zealand), Scandinavia, and parts of South America (Chile, Argentina). Other activities showed stronger effects on well-being, such as listening to music (plus 8%), relaxing (plus 6%), health issues (minus 8%), or studying (minus 7%), which suggests that the negative effects of social media use are comparatively small. Male participants reported significantly more negative effects compared with female and gender-diverse participants. Differences also emerged across age groups, with younger generations reporting more negative effects. In conclusion, according to users across the world, social media has a negative but small perceived impact on their well-being.