What an app can tell us about happiness
In 2010, two friends launched an app called Mappiness as part of a research project at the London School of Economics.
Available to download for free, it sent its users daily prompts about how they were feeling at a particular moment in time.
What were they doing? Who were they with? On a scale of 1-10, how happy did they feel?
The data was then sent back - anonymously and securely - to the Mappiness data store, along with their approximate location from the iPhone's GPS.
Less than a year later, more than 30,000 people had downloaded it and had contributed over 1.5 million pieces of data.
Once the data had been analysed it revealed some interesting but perhaps not surprising facts about our happiness.
As it’s creator Dr. George MacKerron said, “It has been great to see that the things that you expect to make people happy, make people happy. People are happier on the weekend than during the week. People are happier when they are not at work, when the sun is shining and so on.”
The big idea is for the data to be used to help organisations and governments create healthier, happier places for people to work, play and live. And that can only be a good thing.
To learn more about the project check out Dr. MacKerron’s TEDx talk below.
If you’re interested, you can sign up for early access to the Mappiness 2.0 app which is launching soon.
