Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — Gallup, in partnership with the World Health Summit, has released its 2026 State of the World's Emotional Health report. This is the second edition of the annual study. For the first time, it examines how social media use relates to people's emotions and how they evaluate their lives. The study covered 97 countries. Its authors concluded that the relationship is modest overall and not straightforward. The most favorable wellbeing results were found among people who spend between 30 minutes and two hours a day on social media, Gallup reported.
How the study was conducted
In 2026, Gallup added two new questions to its World Poll. Respondents were asked whether they had used any type of social media in the past seven days. Those who said yes were asked how much time they typically spend on it each day. The answers were compared with wellbeing measures the company has tracked worldwide for two decades. Participants report whether they experienced five positive and five negative emotions during much of the previous day. They also rate their lives on a scale from 0 to 10, where 0 represents the worst possible life and 10 the best.
Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan among the leaders in social media reach
A median of 81% of people said they had used social media in the past seven days. Reach varies widely, however, from 98% in Bahrain and Lebanon to 12% in Chad. Kyrgyzstan, at 95%, and Kazakhstan, at 92%, are among the ten countries and areas with the highest use. The list also includes the West Bank and East Jerusalem, Ukraine, Denmark, Singapore, Estonia and Northern Cyprus. Uzbekistan is also among the countries included in the survey. Nine of the ten countries with the lowest use are in sub-Saharan Africa. Besides Chad, they are Ethiopia, Malawi, Togo, the Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Uganda, Zambia and Benin. Afghanistan, at 15%, also falls into this group.
Age and education shape who uses social media
Age and education account for the largest differences in social media use. Among people aged 15 to 29, 95% use social media, compared with 91% of those aged 30 to 49 and 60% of those aged 50 and older. Use rises from 54% among people with elementary education or less to 86% among those with secondary or some postsecondary education and 94% among college graduates. Men and women are about equally likely to use social media.
Use also differs by health and social support. People who do not report health problems are more likely to use social media than those who do, 87% versus 60%. Among those who have someone to count on for help, 81% use social media, compared with 71% of those who do not.
Younger people spend more time on social media
Nearly two-thirds of users (65%) spend less than two hours a day on social media, while 35% spend two hours or more. Younger people spend considerably more time online. Two or more hours a day is reported by 52% of users aged 15 to 29, 33% of those aged 30 to 49 and 23% of those aged 50 and older.
Five hours or more a day is reported by 19% of young users, 11% of middle-aged users and 6% of older users. That means young users are three times as likely as older users to report this level of use. Across all countries, a median of 12% of users spend five hours or more on social media daily. About three in ten users do so in South Africa, the Dominican Republic, Uganda and Lesotho, compared with 5% or less in Germany, Poland and Ethiopia.
Gap with nonusers narrows after accounting for other factors
At first glance, social media users appear to fare considerably better than nonusers. They are more likely to report enjoyment (75% vs. 61%) and less likely to report sadness (20% vs. 33%) and loneliness (17% vs. 29%). Users rate their lives at 6.1 on average, compared with 4.9 for nonusers. The authors note, however, that social media users tend to be younger and better educated. They are also more likely to have someone to count on and less likely to report health problems. These same factors influence how people feel.
Accounting for these differences changes the picture considerably. After adjusting for country, age, gender, education, income, internet use, work status, health and social support, the gaps narrow substantially but do not disappear. Users remain slightly more likely to report enjoyment, smiling or laughing, being treated with respect and learning something interesting. The differences range from 1.9 to 3.2 percentage points. Users also rate their lives slightly higher. Among negative emotions, only stress shows a statistically significant difference: after adjustment, users are 2.5 percentage points more likely to report it. Anger, sadness, worry, loneliness and physical pain do not differ significantly.
Moderate use shows the most favorable profile
Time spent on social media tells a more complicated story. Gallup divided respondents into three groups. Low use covers people who do not use social media or spend less than 30 minutes a day on it. Moderate use ranges from 30 minutes to less than two hours, and high use is two hours or more. Moderate use is the most common, accounting for 39% of adults. Low use applies to 31% and high use to 27%. Among people aged 15 to 29, 47% fall into the high-use group, compared with 28% of those aged 30 to 49 and 12% of those aged 50 and older. Low use shows the opposite pattern, rising from 10% among young people to 22% in the middle age group and 54% among older adults.
Compared with moderate users, those who spend two hours or more a day on social media are more likely to report anger, loneliness, sadness, stress and worry. They are also less likely to report being treated with respect, but more likely to say they felt well-rested. Life evaluation does not differ significantly between the two groups. People in the low-use group, by contrast, rate their lives lower. They are less likely to report enjoyment, smiling or laughing, feeling well-rested and being treated with respect, and slightly more likely to report anger.
According to the authors, wellbeing does not steadily worsen as time spent on social media increases. When time spent is analyzed as a continuous measure, it shows no significant relationship with positive emotions or life evaluation, either among adults overall or among young people.
The relationship also varies by age. In all three age groups, high use is associated with more anger and sadness. Among people aged 15 to 29, it is also linked to more stress and less learning. Among those aged 30 to 49, high use is associated with more loneliness and less respect, and among those aged 50 and older, with more loneliness.
Country income levels matter
Country income levels play a notable role. In high-income countries, high social media use is associated with lower life evaluation. No such difference is evident in countries that are not high income. In the United States, for example, high users rate their lives about 0.3 points lower than moderate users. The same pattern appears among younger Americans. Germany and the United Kingdom show no significant difference between the two groups. The association with anger, loneliness and sadness appears in both high-income and other countries.
The differences are especially visible at the country level. In 16 countries, there is a moderately large negative association between social media use and young people's life evaluation. They include the United States, Canada, Israel, Australia and the Netherlands. In 71 countries, the association is small. In 10 countries, including Mexico, Poland and Ireland, it is moderately large and positive.
Countries considering restrictions for children
Gallup separately examined data from ten countries where restrictions on children's social media use have been imposed or are under consideration. They are Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Indonesia, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and the United States. In the United States, such efforts are taking place at the state level. According to the report, almost 40 countries are discussing, proposing, adopting or implementing age-based restrictions.
Social media use in these ten countries ranges from 74% in Indonesia to 88% in the United States. Moderate use is the most common pattern in most of them. Brazil stands out, with 40% of adults in the high-use group. That share is 15% in Slovenia and 17% in Germany. The authors stress that their data describe adult populations overall and do not evaluate the restrictions themselves or assess social media's effects on young children.
Link to confidence in government
The study also found a link with confidence in government. After adjusting for other factors, social media users are less likely than nonusers to express confidence in their national government. Confidence is lower among high users than among moderate users, and higher among low users.
Negative emotions remain elevated
The report also shows that negative emotions remain elevated worldwide. In 2025, 38% of people reported worry, 36% stress, 33% physical pain, 26% sadness and 23% anger. These figures were essentially unchanged from 2024. They have eased from the peaks recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic but remain well above levels measured two decades ago. Since 2006, physical pain has risen by 10 percentage points, worry and sadness by eight points each, stress by seven points and anger by four points.
Positive emotions have proved more resilient. Since 2006, the share of people reporting enjoyment has fallen from 75% to 70%. The shares who felt well-rested and who smiled or laughed are essentially unchanged, while being treated with respect is slightly more common. The share of people who say they learned or did something interesting has risen by 10 percentage points, from 44% to 54%.
Afghanistan: worry and stress remain high
A separate section focuses on Afghanistan, where Gallup conducted its survey for the first time in three years. Worry was reported by 62% of Afghans, compared with 67% in 2023. Stress was reported by 56%, sadness by 44%, physical pain by 38% and anger by 28%. Apart from the five-point decline in worry, none of these measures changed meaningfully.
Positive emotions remain scarce. Only one in four Afghans reported enjoyment or smiling and laughing the previous day. Eighteen percent said they learned something interesting, 37% felt well-rested and 67% said they were treated with respect. Afghanistan ranks at or near the bottom on positive emotions among the countries Gallup surveyed in 2026.
Conclusions and limitations
In his foreword to the report, World Health Summit CEO Carsten Schicker wrote that "the relationship between social media use and wellbeing is not uniform." He noted that it varies across countries and populations and depends on factors including age, health, social support and people's wider life circumstances.
The authors emphasize that the study is observational. It identifies associations but does not establish cause and effect. Gallup did not measure which platforms people use, what they do online or what content they encounter, nor whether their use is problematic or compulsive. In most countries, about 1,000 people aged 15 and older were interviewed by telephone or face to face. Once 2026 data collection is complete, the dataset will expand to nearly 140 countries.
