{"id":29375,"date":"2026-03-20T13:14:51","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:14:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=29375"},"modified":"2026-03-20T13:14:51","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T11:14:51","slug":"global-report-links-social-media-use-to-declining-youth-well-being","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/global-report-links-social-media-use-to-declining-youth-well-being\/","title":{"rendered":"Global report links social media use to declining youth well-being"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the world marks the International Day of Happiness, the latest World Happiness Report 2026 is warning that heavy social media use is linked to a sharp decline in well-being among young people, particularly in English-speaking countries.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The report highlights growing concerns about the impact of excessive screen time on mental health, especially among the youth.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>It also ranks Finland as the happiest country in the world for the ninth year in a row, maintaining its top position globally.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":21042,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-29375","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"As the world marks the International Day of Happiness, the latest World Happiness Report 2026 is warning that heavy social media use is linked to a sharp decline in well-being among young people","published_date":"2026-03-20 13:06:18","news_description":"As the world marks the International Day of Happiness, the latest World Happiness Report 2026 is warning that heavy social media use is linked to a sharp decline in well-being among young people","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29376,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/29375\/revisions\/29376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=29375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}