18 March 2026

Young people are happier in sub-Saharan Africa than in the wealthy West

Globally, the younger the age of first smartphone use, the worse young people’s mental well-being

Sapien Labs, an American nonprofit, has been surveying global mental health since 2019. From the outset it identified a marked difference between the generations: 40 per cent of those under 35 now report clinically significant difficulties, compared with around 10 per cent over the age of 55.

But what Sapien Labs describes as a youth “mental well-being crisis” is far from uniform. Young people in affluent nations such as the UK, US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the countries of western Europe are faring substantially worse than their counterparts elsewhere. The leading five countries for positive youth mental health are all in sub-Saharan Africa: Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Nigeria and, in the top spot, Ghana (which also ranks third best globally for older adults).

Sapien Labs’ latest report, published last month and based on data from some one million people in 84 countries, attempts to probe the underlying factors. Four associations emerge. The younger the age of first smartphone use, the worse young people’s mental well-being (Finnish kids get one around age ten, whereas in sub-Saharan Africa they are an adult accessory). Societies where diets are dominated by ultra-processed food tend to have poorer scores (the US and UK are in the top three for UPF consumption, along with South Korea). Strong family bonds appear to be protective (Latin America leads the world in this regard). And countries with a vibrant spirituality also have happier youth (Tanzania tops the global rankings).

The Sapien Labs research is an observational study and cannot prove causality. There are clearly other factors at play: the gap between young and older adults’ mental health, first identified in 2019, rapidly became a gulf during the Covid pandemic and has remained so since. Nevertheless, Sapien Labs argues the associations it has identified together account for three-quarters of the difference in youth mental well-being between the best- and worst-performing nations.

It makes sobering reading for the UK, which ranks 81st out of the 84 countries. What in some quarters is cynically dismissed as the “snowflake generation” is instead the canary in the coalmine, telling us we have created a toxic society in which the next generation is failing to thrive.

To give the Labour government its due, it has recognised the crisis. Last year, the Department of Culture, Media and Sport collaborated with a group of young people to produce a “state of the nation” report based on the contributions of 14,000 participants aged ten to 25. This led in December to the publication of the first National Youth Strategy in nearly 20 years. One strand focuses on better mental health support in schools, but this is merely trying to resuscitate the canary. Far more important are measures to reverse the destruction of youth services by Tory austerity – since 2010, 70 per cent of funding has been cut. And they need to go further: whether it be unaffordable housing, stifling exam-focused education, environmental degradation, or punitive student loan interest, government policy will be key to giving young people a vision of a future.

Another trend in affluent countries is the chasm between the richest and poorest, something long argued to have a corrosive effect on health across society. Sapien Labs’ global comparisons show that wealth is no guarantee of mental well-being, but it would be instructive if future reports examined whether there is an association with in-country inequality.

The project is also poised to be able to test causation in one of its four associations. With Australia having banned under-16s from social media, soon to be joined by France (though not the UK, since the Commons rejected the measure on 9 March), a global experiment is emerging. If young people’s well-being improves in countries with bans during subsequent surveys and other nations fail to see a similar recovery, it will add weight to the growing sense that our laissez-faire approach to new technology may be one important blight on the mental health of our young.

[Further reading: Timothée Chalamet is right: ballet is ready to die]