Digital Well-Being Index – Year Four
February 2026
At Snap, nothing is more important than the safety and well-being of our Snapchat community. We have in place, and consistently enforce, policies and rules that detail the type of content and behavior that are acceptable on Snapchat. We offer tools and resources to help Snapchatters stay safe, and we engage with others in industry and across the tech sector to better protect teens and younger users in particular.
To offer insight into how teens and young adults are faring online, four years ago, we launched a five-year research project into Generation Z’s digital well-being. Since 2022, we’ve surveyed teens (aged 13-17), young adults (aged 18-24), and parents of teens, aged 13 to 19, in six countries: Australia, France, Germany, India, the UK, and the U.S. The study produces a Digital Well-Being Index (DWBI): a measure of Gen Z’s online psychological well-being.
The fourth Digital Well-Being Index for the six geographies stands at 64, one percentage point higher than the previous year, and still a somewhat average reading on a scale of 0 to 100 – neither particularly favorable, nor especially worrisome. By country, India again registered the highest DWBI reading at 69, up two points from Year Three. The U.S. DWBI also rose two points to 67. All other countries’ readings were up one point from the prior year.
The index leverages the PERNA model, a variation on an existing research vehicle, comprising 20 sentiment statements across five categories: Positive Emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Negative Emotion, and Achievement. Respondents were asked to state their level of agreement with each of the 20 statements, taking into account all of their online experiences on any platform, service, device, or application (not just Snapchat) over the preceding three months. (The research was conducted from April 29 - May 10, 2025.) To review all 20 DWBI sentiment statements, see this link.
A DWBI score was calculated for each respondent based on the 20 sentiment statements. Their scores were aggregated into four DWBI groups: Flourishing (13%, +3 percentage points from Year Three); Thriving (45%, up 1 percentage point from 2024), Middling (36%, down 3 percentage points from Year Three), and Struggling (6%, down one percentage point from 2024). (See, below for details.)
Encouragingly, 2025 data showed the vast majority of teens are reaching out to parents, friends, siblings, and other trusted people in their lives after experiencing online risk. But findings also show that teens remain less forthcoming when faced with more personal challenges online, including sexual risks and self-harm.
Seven in 10 teens (71%) in six countries said they sought help or spoke with someone after being exposed to an online risk, like unwanted contact or online bullying. That compares to 68% who said they reached out after an online incident in 2024, and a low of 59% in 2023. Moreover, nearly nine in 10 parents of 13-to-19-year-olds (88%) said their teens approached them directly about digital challenges, up from 86% in each of the three prior years. Yet, in keeping with previous years’ results, when faced with sexual risks, violent extremist content, and self-harm, fewer teens approached their parents, leaving adults to discover these types of teenage struggles on their own or from someone else.
Our digital well-being research yielded other interesting findings. Below are some highlights. The full report can be viewed here.
81% of Gen Z teens and young adults said they experienced some online risk in early 2025, up one percentage point from 80% in 2024.
49% of Gen Z respondents were potential targets for sexual extortion in the prior three months, as a result of experiencing grooming (37%), catfishing (28%), hacking (26%), or sharing intimate imagery (21%). One in five (21%) targeted Gen Z teens and young adults were actually threatened with sexual extortion. Parents need to remain vigilant as findings continue to show that young people’s exposure to online sexual risks remains a blindspot for their caregivers.
Please find additional, country- and language-specific resources on our Digital Well-Being Index below: