# Technology and happiness **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 17, 2006, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408 "2006-01-17T20:55:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408/61 "2006-01-19T03:04:12Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > Talk about willful ignorance. As I stated above, and you chose to ignore it once again, I did not ask for a cite that **malnutrition** was the norm. I asked > “As far as starving to death, do you have any figures about how prevalent it was to starve to death in previous times?” > > You did not provide this information. You can scream that people shrank 6 inches all you want but that does not answer the question your cite was in response to, namely “how prevalent it was to starve to death in previous times?” You don’t think it’s reasonable to infer that, if a majority of the population could not get enough food to meet proper nutritional requirements, that a correspondingly larger percentage of the population could not get enough food to simply survive? ---
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408/62 "2006-01-19T03:36:33Z")
I would infer something completely different from the OP, which is that people remember their childhoods as being happier than they probably were. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408/63 "2006-01-19T09:25:08Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > You don’t think it’s reasonable to infer that, if a majority of the population could not get enough food to meet proper nutritional requirements, that a correspondingly larger percentage of the population could not get enough food to simply survive? This is one possibility, but it is by no means a certain conclusion. A whole population can be malnourished because they eat only rice, for example, but they have enough rice so they don’t starve to death. The cite simply did not provide any direct evidence as to how many people used to starve to death. Maybe a lot did. But that cite did not show it. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408/64 "2006-01-19T09:27:00Z")
> [@Walter Windchill](#): > > I would infer something completely different from the OP, which is that people remember their childhoods as being happier than they probably were. This is definitely one possibility. Are you claiming for a fact that children today are happier than kids a generation ago? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408/65 "2006-01-19T12:16:57Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > You guys are making this more complex than it really is. Oh. Well. In _that_ case… > [@](#): > > In the OP I simply made an observation, and asked the following question > > 1. Are people (adults and kids) today happier than they were before? > 2. If not, what is the point of inventing more and more stuff? 1. No. 2. Invention doesn’t require an increase in happiness. Since my goal in this thread was to challenge any notion that technology leads to a decrease in happiness (coupled with the notion that people in pre-industrial cultures live better, happier lives than us tech-chained devils) and there’s no other meat to this thread, I guess I’m done. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408/66 "2006-01-19T14:50:41Z")
> [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > Since my goal in this thread was to challenge any notion that technology leads to a decrease in happiness (coupled with the notion that people in pre-industrial cultures live better, happier lives than us tech-chained devils) and there’s no other meat to this thread, I guess I’m done. Since you seem to have been arguing against an imaginary friend who thinks we are tech-chained devils, I guess it’s for the best that you are done. ---
**Author:** ![Walter\_Windchill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Walter\_Windchill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walter_Windchill)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 3:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408/67 "2006-01-19T15:44:32Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > This is definitely one possibility. > > Are you claiming for a fact that children today are happier than kids a generation ago? Not at all. Just that different conclusions can be drawn from the scanty anecdotal evidence of the OP. I’d say my kid is happier than I was as a kid, but it’s not necessarily because of technology. Except for Harry Potter, there’s not much she’d miss if we were time warped back to the 70s. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408/68 "2006-01-19T18:39:44Z")
I love this subject. Its actually alot more researched than most people believe. Happiness has remained constant in the last 50 years for the developed world. It hasn’t gone up even while the economy is growing. However depression rates are climbing. Some of the reasons given for the climbing rates of depression is our junk food diet which are high in saturated fats and sugar but low in omega 3 fats and vitamins/minerals, so our brains cannot function properly, and the increase in competitiveness in our society. People are setting their expectations higher and higher due to the media giving false impressions on life. Everyone wants to look like a model, make 100k a year, have a perfect family and perfect health but reality doesn’t work that way. In fact happiness and depression research has found that high expectations are counterproductve to happiness and can cause depression. Low expectations are easier to meet and cause more happiness, but our expectations keep rising as a society. As far as economic growth and happiness, it really doesn’t matter domestically. As long as you aren’t poor compared to the Joneses you won’t feel unhappy. People who earn poverty wages (less than 30k a household or so) are less happy than people with 30-50k wages, but beyond 50k it doesn’t matter much. I’ll dig up the cites for all this crap later if people need it. Internationally I have read (I don’t know if I can find the cite but I’ll try) that happiness is only dependent on having enough money to avoid serious problems with food and health. Once you have those then money won’t really make a difference. According to Studies places like Nigeria, India and Mexico are happier than places like the US. In fact the top 5 happy countries on earth are 3rd world countries. [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3157570.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3157570.stm) HAPPINESS AROUND THE WORLD The happiest Nigeria Mexico Venezuela El Salvador Puerto Rico There are nouveau attempts to study happiness growth in nations with things like the ‘gross national happiness index’ or ‘subjective well being index’. While happiness (implying a small amount/lack of negative emotions as well as feeling comfortable with life) is somewhat considered to be a pointless emotion in our society it is tied into almost every positive aspect of humanity. Happy people are more altruistic, healthier, better at interpersonal relations, they get better grades in school (according to Martin Seligman), they are more creative, they deal with setbacks better, etc. Building a happier nation would do alot to fight things like crime and mental illness while promoting economic growth and charitable causes. [http://thehappinessshow.com/HappinessBenefits.htm](http://thehappinessshow.com/HappinessBenefits.htm) So in answer to your question, no technology isn’t making us happier. However we are using it to study happiness and depression, and there are numerous working interventions to promote happiness and ease depression but most people don’t really use them or know about them. Internationally happiness isn’t really tied into income or ‘stuff’, nor is it domestically unless you feel inferior to your neighbors. I don’t know why we focus on endless economic growth above all else. If anything it may make us less happy by creating higher and higher standards so people feel more and more like failures. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2006, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408/69 "2006-01-19T22:19:43Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > In fact the top 5 happy countries on earth are 3rd world countries. Would it be reasonable to consider that the citizens of these nations have a much broader range of emotion, so that some citizens are happy while some (I expect many) live in misery? The industrialized nations might just be better and pushing everyone toward the contented middle. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2006, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408/70 "2006-01-23T14:13:22Z")
> [@Wesley Clark](#): > > As far as economic growth and happiness, it really doesn’t matter domestically. As long as you aren’t poor compared to the Joneses you won’t feel unhappy. People who earn poverty wages (less than 30k a household or so) are less happy than people with 30-50k wages, but beyond 50k it doesn’t matter much. Thanks for the interesting info. Coincidentally, I was just reading [finance.yahoo.com](http://finance.yahoo.com) and came across something related to [this topic](http://finance.yahoo.com/columnist/article/moneyhappy/2306) > [@finance.yahoo.com](#): > > In other words, the higher the income, the less likely one is to be evicted, go hungry, live in a crime-ridden neighborhood, have a child drop out of school, lack the wherewithal to see a doctor, or be forced to hide the car from the repo man. Once basic needs are met, however, studies show rising income doesn’t translate into a direct rise in well-being, Smith says. > > … the richer a society becomes, the less its well-being depends on money. Over the last 50 years, U.S. GDP has tripled, while reported life satisfaction has flat-lined, and depression rates have jumped 50-fold. This is in agreement with, and explains, my obervations in the OP. People who have their basic needs met do not get happier with more money or more goods. And yet, people continually seek more money and more goods, even after they have met their basic needs. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/technology-and-happiness/340408.md?page=3)