alt.hn

3/19/2026 at 12:01:52 PM

Canada slips in World Happiness rankings, due in part to social media use

 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/world-happiness-2026-canada-25-9.7134296

by Fricken

3/19/2026 at 1:24:44 PM

I wonder if they may be confusing cause and effect. The cost of living in Canada's major cities is very high, while salaries are stagnant. The primary cause of that is the elevated price of housing.

The result is that large portions of the population, particularly younger folks, barely have the financial means to survive. This plus extreme weather and an absence of third places means they stay home. What do people do, then? Browse the Internet, social media, TV.

What else are they going to do, realistically? At least in places like Toronto.

by david-gpu

3/19/2026 at 1:39:22 PM

I dunno. Leave? The economics increasingly don't make sense here relative to other places in the world.

It is a bizarre spin on the situation here but the executive summary from the World Happiness Report does indeed put "social media" front and center. I guess.. No interest in digging into the minutiae right now.

by rdevilla

3/19/2026 at 1:49:06 PM

I agree the economics here don’t make sense, but leave where? The rest of the world has increasingly strange, or at least unattractive, economics too.

The US is a difficult and long process to get a green card. Other English-speaking countries aren’t necessarily better: Australia seems similar in terms of being a natural resource extraction economy with insanely high real estate prices. Same productivity and salary concerns with the UK.

by vchynarov

3/19/2026 at 4:02:45 PM

It's trivial to move to the USA on a TN1 from Canada compared to any other visa category.

If you have a job letter, you show up to the airport and CBP can issue it immediately.

This includes software development which is responsible for GDP growth. Which is why 80-90% of CS students at the University of Waterloo immediately move to the USA after graduation.

by jjmarr

3/19/2026 at 5:22:09 PM

> Which is why 80-90% of CS students at the University of Waterloo immediately move to the USA after graduation.

I am familiar with this statistic. It explains a lot about the Toronto tech community, especially versus Waterloo's.

by rdevilla

3/19/2026 at 5:12:25 PM

If I could, I wouldn't. The U.S is fine usually to visit, but I wouldn't prefer to live there. Thankfully there are theoretically other alternatives that are much more appealing regardless of absolute earnings. The vibes could be better north of the border, but the U.S gives the ick

by brailsafe

3/19/2026 at 11:53:26 PM

> It's trivial to move to the USA on a TN1 from Canada compared to any other visa category

Okay, but as a Canadian, why would I? American seems like a shithole. All of my American friends are trying to get out asap

by bluefirebrand

3/20/2026 at 1:12:07 AM

There is no tech talent in Canada due to the pay/tax difference and TN1 is good for SWEs.

e.g. Nobody at my office has heard of Gas Town yet. I had to get an invite to a predominantly American Teams chat to discuss it. It's a very draining environment.

Also, senior devs make US$110k and a detached home costs US$800k. I would pay less in taxes and a home would be cheaper relative to income in California.

by jjmarr

3/20/2026 at 1:42:04 AM

I've made a good living as a software developer in Canada and I own a detached home...

Just not in Toronto, Vancouver, or Victoria

But I guess I'm not tech talent, idk.

by bluefirebrand

3/20/2026 at 1:35:39 PM

The "there is no tech talent in Canada" folks have their heads buried in the sand. Markham is a tech hub, and so are a bunch of other places. Obviously it doesn't have the scale of the Bay Area, and the salaries are indeed lower than the Bay Area.

Many of us choose to live in Canada for a variety of reasons, and it is not because we couldn't get a job down south. Some of us even had to turn down moving to the US multiple times in our careers, but that idea is uncomfortable for some folks. It is almost as if some people value other things in addition to money.

by david-gpu

3/19/2026 at 2:33:19 PM

Non-English speaking country? One alternative is the Philippines. Most of the population is able to speak English.

by chaostheory

3/19/2026 at 3:22:43 PM

[dead]

by onetokeoverthe

3/19/2026 at 2:10:02 PM

You can replace Canada here with almost any other OECD country and this would be accurate.

by jszymborski

3/19/2026 at 7:57:23 PM

I encourage anybody to go look at the magnitude of the largest housing bubbles in the past few decades. Canada's ranks near or at the top in any comparison from any source.

by david-gpu

3/20/2026 at 1:21:01 AM

Housing affordability has been in the dumps for years now and Canada's happiness ranking was much higher in previous years.

by jszymborski

3/20/2026 at 1:37:52 PM

Things are getting worse in a variety of areas, not only housing. But no, it must be that we never heard of social media until two years ago.

by david-gpu

3/20/2026 at 7:08:25 PM

I agree that the social media explanation is weak, but the things dragging Canada down are the same amongst most of the western world in my opinion, is all.

by jszymborski

3/19/2026 at 1:33:54 PM

Governments and societal institutions love to blame external bugbears. Newspapers are certainly no fans of competition from social media.

by gedy

3/20/2026 at 1:35:23 AM

Cost of living and the seemingly continuous drop in quality of life are playing a much bigger role than social media use. Trudeau's devastating policies may have done well for the pat-themselves-on-the-back-because-we're-so-great folks, but, the country is really not doing well.

Born and raised Canadian, but I lived outside of Canada in a non-OECD country for most of Trudeau's tenure, and returned a few years ago. The changes - almost all for the worse - in Canada during that period are quite astounding. And obvious to me as someone who rarely visited Canada until I moved back.

I think Canadians suffer a sort of a "boiling frog" thing, where the changes were gradual enough that they don't realize how much things have turned to crap.

My wife and I have already decided that we will leave Canada again once our son graduates high school. We stay here for him so he can be with his friends, and that is the only reason.

It's such a shame as the country truly has so much potential to be awesome, and I love the people here.

by lm411

3/19/2026 at 4:07:00 PM

CBC which gets $1b of tax payer money to promote only the sitting government, which they do none stop, thinks people are unhappy because of social media.

Terrible.

by justinhj

3/19/2026 at 4:15:17 PM

The CBC is reporting the analysis of The World Happiness Report - it's not coming to its own conclusions. Maybe you should read the article and original source yourself before making hasty comments.

by BrokenCogs

3/19/2026 at 6:02:39 PM

I don't click that garbage I've read enough of their work to know. They are the enemy of Canadians.

by justinhj

3/20/2026 at 1:41:41 AM

CBC used to be so excellent.

Now we've got a CBC that punishes those that go against their political ideology - funded by the Liberals, with people like David Cameron and Rosemary Barton choosing who gets to be on discussion panels.

by lm411

3/19/2026 at 6:42:37 PM

I agree the CBC is a worn out sock puppet, not like when I was a kid and zosky could call ANY world leader and they would pick up the fucking phone eh!

by metalman