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?
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 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.
This is definitely one possibility.
Are you claiming for a fact that children today are happier than kids a generation ago?
Oh. Well. In that case…
- No.
- 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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
Thanks for the interesting info.
Coincidentally, I was just reading finance.yahoo.com and came across something related to this topic
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.