When the Guardian tried to gauge the mood of the nation in 2014, its findings suggested that the key to happiness was to be “a 65-year-old man who lives in Wolverhampton, subscribes to Sky Sports and owns a state-of-the-art gaming console, paid for out of his lottery winnings”. Which was all rather lovely if you were a lucky middle-aged Wulfrunian playing Fifa 2015 on the PS4 – but what about the rest of us? Enter the Guardian’s Happy for Life app, with its daily suggestions for activities to lift your mood.
So how’s it all going? As the experiment, sponsored by life insurance provider Beagle Street, enters its final week, it’s time to take a look at the results so far. (You can click here to see the daily results in our up-to-the-minute interactive dashboard.)
Every day, the app welcomes users by asking them to rate their current levels of happiness on a sliding scale ranging from “meh” to “MAX HAPPY” – the internationally recognised happiness scale (or at least, it should be). That score in turn is converted into a percentage.
On average, users of the app rate themselves as “happy”, with an average happiness score of about 44%. But with the in-app sliding scale defaulting to a middle-of-the-road 50%, a significant number of users start the day moving the scale downwards instead of upwards.
Compare that with how users rate their happiness after completing an activity: 56% on average. That certainly shows the app is having a positive effect, at least in the short term. What’s more, if you compare pre-activity happiness ratings since the experiment started, the overall daily average has gradually increased , from 39% on 1 December 2014 to 47% on 20 February 2015.
A few things we’ve learned
Living for the weekend
As might be expected, the general happiness loop sees the weekends polling higher scores than weekdays (around three to four percentage points higher on average), suggesting that users are finding the daily grind somewhat … grinding.
Blue Monday
The run-up to Christmas saw a gradual increase in average happiness levels overall as the party season got into full swing, before spiking significantly on Christmas Eve – a whopping 55%. But when the majority of the UK’s workforce went back to work on 5 January, app users’ moods hit an all-time low – with men continuing to be especially glum the day after, falling to a low of 38%.
What’s making us happy?
Social activities are coming out on top for both sexes, with a score of 58% on our scale – with mental challenges seemingly app users’ least favourite. Perhaps this shows that doing things with and for other people is the route to fulfilment?
And as for the Wufrunians?
Well, according to our age scale, over-65s in the West Midlands are certainly the happiest in their region. But it’s the East Midlanders who come out on top overall.
- The app is no longer available to download.
