World Happiness Report 2023 65 New evidence on social connections In 2022, Gallup, Meta and a group of academic advisors collaborated on the State of Social Connections study, a first-of-its-kind, in-depth look at people’s social connections around the world. The first phase of the study, the State of Social Connections 7-country survey, involved a detailed survey on the quality and quantity of people’s social interactions in a diverse set of seven large countries (Brazil, Egypt, France, Indonesia, India, Mexico, and the United States) spanning six global regions.75 The resulting data show how connected, socially supported, and lonely people feel in various cultural, economic and technological environments.76 A second phase of the research, the State of Social Connections Gallup World Poll survey, expanded its global reach by running a select set of the State of Social Connections study questions on the Gallup World Poll, reaching 140+ countries, and providing the ability to study overall life evaluations and the relative importance of social connections, social support, and loneliness. What have we been able to learn from the State of Social Connections 7-country survey? First and perhaps foremost, respondents in all regions reported high levels of social connectedness and social support, generally almost twice as high as reports of loneliness, even during the third year of COVID-19 disruptions to social life. For the 7 countries considered together, using a scale from 1 to 4, where higher numbers indicate more of what is being measured, social connections and social support both average over 3.0, with loneliness less than 1.7. There were relatively small differences among the countries for all three measures, as shown in Figure 2.8.77 As shown in the bottom bars for each country in Figure 2.8, overall satisfaction with social relationships averaged 3.33 for the seven countries as a group, Figure 2.9: Using loneliness and a combined measure of social connectedness and support to predict relationship satisfaction * p < .1, *** p < .01. -.231*** -.111*** -.099*** -.085*** -.056* -.157*** -.261*** .314*** .37*** .188*** .273*** .335*** .267*** .39*** Brazil Egypt France India Indonesia Mexico United States -.4 -.2 0 .2 .4 Regression coefficient Loneliness Social connections and support Association of social measures with relationship satisfaction
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