It was a poll of contentedness. Not happiness. Those are adjacent, but definitely not the same (and one of them is a somewhat challenging word you wouldn't necessarily want to use as a pop journalist) Like being fine and being happy are adjacent, but if your gf says she's "just fine", you won't take that to mean she's really happy, would you?

In Finnish culture there's also a sort of unwritten rule that you're not supposed to complain. And a very common saying is "can't complain". But if you can't complain because there's societal pressure not to, instead of you just not having any complaints, that's two quite different things.

Sure yeah, we don't have people living on the streets and whatnot, but we do have problems of our own. Isolation and loneliness being very high on the list. Doesn't really fit with being "the happiest".

There's just a massive gap between how Finns are and how Finns are perceived to be by the world/Internet.