Digital Intensity and Well-Being: Evidence from a Composite Social Media Usage Index

This dataset accompanies the study titled “Digital Intensity and Well-Being: Evidence from a Composite Social Media Usage Index.” The data package has been prepared to ensure full transparency and reproducibility of the empirical analysis conducted at the country level for the year 2025.

The dataset integrates multiple publicly available sources, including the World Happiness Report (2025), DataReportal (2025), and Statista global social media statistics. It combines structural indicators of subjective well-being with digital usage metrics to enable a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between digital intensity and national happiness.

A key contribution of this dataset is the construction of the Social Media Usage Index (SMUI), a multidimensional composite indicator that captures digital participation through three main components: internet infrastructure, social media participation, and platform-specific engagement (YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram). In addition, the dataset introduces the Digital Shelter Effect (DSE), a derived measure that reflects the relative balance between digital intensity and normalized well-being levels.

The data package is organized into six main components:

- Raw data: Original country-level indicators collected from external sources- Cleaned data: Processed and analysis-ready dataset- Codebook: Detailed variable definitions, units, sources, and transformations- Index construction documentation: Methodological explanation of SMUI and DSE- Analysis code: Python script used for normalization, index construction, and statistical modeling- Replication outputs: Tables and results corresponding to the findings reported in the study

All preprocessing steps, normalization procedures, and index calculations are fully documented and reproducible. The analysis includes correlation analysis, stepwise regression modeling, and Random Forest-based variable importance estimation.

This dataset is intended for researchers in computational social science, digital sociology, and well-being studies who are interested in cross-country digital behavior and its structural determinants. By providing a transparent and reproducible data pipeline, the dataset contributes to the growing literature on digitalization and subjective well-being.

No personal or identifiable data are included in this dataset.

Social media, digitalization, well-being, happiness, composite index, SMUI, DSE, cross-country analysis