9 ms·

What Do Happy Teens Do?

116 points by prostoalex 8y ago

eseehausen 8y ago
Obviously it's beyond the purview of the study, but I have to imagine the correlations aren't too far off for adults either.
trukterious 8y ago
They sing while they're playing and/or working at the computer.
- stephengillie 8y ago
  "But mom, I'm trying to show my Minecraft castle to my uncle!"
sargun 8y ago
This seems obvious...as the author says, face-to-face interaction leads to happier (people) teens (bar sleep). People with friends seem to spend more time face-to-face with other people. This seems like a no-brainer.
- dmreedy 8y ago
  Sometimes the results of science map to our intuition. Sometimes they don't. Both outcomes are interesting, and neither should be assumed.
- VLM 8y ago
  The simple and traditional "introversion = evil extroversion = good" meme is tempting, but alternative explanations are possible. For the majority, which are introverted, possibly "everything must be social on smartphones" combined with non-face-to-face interaction means phone-time means they never get that alone time to recharge and feel better, can never quite get away from the dreaded notification pull-down drawer. Imagine a world where cultural pressure combined with advanced social media technology makes meditation and introspection and privacy and serenity impossible; for some people that would be heaven, others, hell, regardless which, its certainly what we have now. Another interesting theory, possibly even accurate: kid-only interaction is inherently bad, in the "Lord of the Flies" sense. Adult interaction might be good, Cross-age tribal interaction might be good. Possibly all kid-only interaction is bad and has always been bad; its certainly very artificial and non-evolutionary and pre-social media there have been critiques of the culture produced by kids interacting solely with other kids. If that theory is correct, then a hand-held device that pumps more of something that can only be poisonous would likely make most kids more unhappy on average. If a culture of "Lord of the Flies" sucked, then "Lord of the Flies, now as a social phone app" is merely going to suck more.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    When I was a kid, I generally avoided other kids. With a few exceptions. Because, as you say, "Lord of the Flies" bullshit. And damn, I like that: social media = "Lord of the Flies" :)
jklein11 8y ago
Is psychologytoday considered an authority in the psychology space? This isn't specifically about this article but I have read a number of psychologytoday articles recently and they feel like their are opinion pieces loosely backed by studies. This article seems like pretty sound advice, but sometimes I worry that some articles get presented as cold hard scientific facts when they are really just one model or theory.
- TangoTrotFox 8y ago
  The replication crisis in psychology started by selecting high impact papers published in reputable psychological journals. Cold hard scientific facts and psychology simply do not go together. And that's not necessarily a condemnation of the field, but rather just a statement that it should be viewed as observations with proposed explanations rather than 'cold hard scientific fact.' For instance I think this little article does a good job of making clear to the reader that what they're discussing is entirely a correlation. There might be reasons for this, or it could just be entirely spurious.
  - BayesStreet 8y ago
    No one should really be considered an authority in the field of psychology. Sure they can get things right sometimes but it's not rigorous enough fundamentally to add much validity. It's their bread and butter to spam NHST at the data until something sticks.
- thomasfedb 8y ago
  Definately looks like pop-psychology, a grain of salt would be worthwhile.
konraditurbe 8y ago
I'm very happy developing mobile solutions....
stephengillie 8y ago
Hang out with friends, goto the mall or other hangouts, play Minecraft, watch Youtube and Twitch and Vine and try to make their own videos, ride bicycles, and argue with their parents. A few things have changed, but teen-age is largely the same as it was for us.
- bsheir74 8y ago
  No its not. Read the authors book, igen. Crucial difference - kids are more depressed and lonely
  - stephengillie 8y ago
    These are what my happy nieces do. What is the author's source? A paywalled summarizing study that analyzed data from other studies: http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Femo0000403 http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Femo0000403 - Was any primary research conducted? You'll have to pay $12 to find out.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      Damn :( sci-hub •• Search for a proxy to download an article •• Decreases in Psychological Well-Being Among American Adolescents After 2012 and Links to Screen Time During the Rise of Smartphone Technology. Twenge 2018 10.1037 / emo0000403 no suitable proxies found
  - jack9 8y ago
    > kids are more depressed and lonely > No its not Yes it is. More is not "largely different", regardless of study rigor.
koala_man 8y ago
I first read this as a condemnation of phone use, but that may just have been a bias. On a second reading, I found that it was very careful in specifying that all observations were correlations: >Because this analysis is correlational, we can’t tell if these activities cause happiness, happiness causes teens to engage in these activities more, or if the same type of teens do both. I'd be very interested in seeing a randomized trial to find causations, but the ethical implications get in the way one again.
teenthrowaway 8y ago
And not a word about sex or masturbation, because of course no teen ever has spent any time at all thinking about the first or doing the second. I wonder how much happier the world would be if we just let teens fuck each other once they puberty.
gumby 8y ago
For some reason it jumped out at me that they considered time in religious services as a measurable component of how an ordinary person might spend their time. I can see how it might be relevant to the topic at hand but it's quite uncommon for me to encounter a normative discussion of religious activity as an unremarkable thing. Is it common (i.e. do I live in a bubble) or is it a marker of something about this article that I am missing? I pretty much only encounter mention of religion in the news headlines and am not sure I even know anyone who attends any kind of religious service more than two or three times a year. It may be quite common and I might live in a bubble, but then is it mentioned routinely?
- mbrameld 8y ago
  If there are churches near you why not drive by one or two any random Sunday morning around 10:30 or 11:00. Do it a few weekends in a row and see if your impression changes.
  - gumby 8y ago
    There is literally one at the corner of the next block and parking is never an issue on Sunday. I walk my dog past a few and apart from being well maintained they seem pretty deserted. The exception is the one downtown Palo Alto where Harold and Maude was filmed, but mainly I see wedding parties coming out on Saturdays.
    - solresol 8y ago
      Anecdata: ACLF in Mountain View had so many people attending that they had to have volunteers direct traffic. (To be fair, that was about a decade ago, so it might have changed. And even now it just looks like an office block rather than a church, so there's no way you would pick up on it when walking past.)
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  I think it depends on where you are. I lived in Indiana the first 35 years of life, generally in towns with 3000-70,000 people. It was quite common for folks to go to church. Single? Want friends? and so on? You needed church. It was really, really common. To the point that folks weren't as willing to be openly athiest or customers at a retail place to assume that since employees were nice, they must all be good Christians. It was definitely mentioned, and wasn't uncommon for folks to ask where others went to church. I always got the impression that larger cities or different areas were more free with this sort of thing. I now live in Norway, and I know very few folks that spend a lot of time at church. There definitely aren't nearly as many of them here in town, and I think half the churches are as much of a tourist attraction as they are places for congregation. There is also more activities that aren't connected with any sort of religion here as well - organized volunteer work, for example, with no affiliation with religion.
tormeh 8y ago
Is there anything more stereotypical for a depressed teenager to do than listen to music? That's a mystery that solves itself. Sitting alone, staring into a wall while listening to music is not a thing most healthy people do. For most, music is a secondary activity. Anyway, I don't think the screen matters much per se. Being social in person is good. Not being so is bad.
- yeowMeng 8y ago
  uhmm.. Staring into a book while listening to silence.. staring into a wall listening to music.. These are introspective journeys. You can’t expect everyone to be social in person from day 13.. Some ppl need time before they bloom socially. Social blooming is different for everyone.
- ken 8y ago
  > For most, music is a secondary activity. This is strange to me. It seems like a modern change -- is it? Mostly today I see people listening to music while doing something else, or hearing it as background for movies/TV/games/commercials/stores. In the past, we didn't think it was strange to just listen to a record. That was how we heard music. It wasn't a sign of depression. (Before 2005, the most I ever did to music was drive a car.) Music used to be a more social activity due to technological limitations, but one consequence is that it was more often a primary activity. I suspect that I have some condition (hidden hearing loss, perhaps), as I can't just listen to music while doing something else. If there's music playing, my brain can't ignore it, or background it. Maybe these people who listen to music in private simply aren't physically able to appreciate it the way most others are. The constant noise of modern life causes anxiety for me, too. Concerts may be more social but they're also a lot more expensive. Bumbershoot was $10 in 1997, $35 in 2007, and $130 this year. You can't blame teens for choosing to listen to music in private. I don't know how any teens could afford to go to concerts today.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    Ticket prices for bigger bands have definitely gone way up. I'm very happy that the genres I listen to are still rather niche and out of the mainstream. The most expensive concert tickets I've ever bought were less than $100, and that was an arena show with two fairly big local bands.
aklemm 8y ago
This is a good and simple thing to focus on. My working theory—-as a parent of a soon-to-be teenager—was that teens are missing out on any true responsibility. No one expects them to do anything that actually is crucial to the family or community. That said, I don’t yet know what that will be for my kids. Maybe some kind of service thing weekly, or maybe it’s some critical chores.
- ddingus 8y ago
  We incorporated our teens into the family. They did not always get it right. But, when that happened, everyone looking to them? Yeah, they see they matter. IMHO, some of this is a very good thing. No need to load them down. Childhood is special. But, having a thing or few that they actually own is good all around. I was brought up a similar way. I valued it
  - autarch 8y ago
    "into the family" ... what? Did you mean to say "family business"? If so, please post more details, that sounds interesting.
    - ddingus 8y ago
      Everyone, as they gain skill, and begin to "wake up" as people, ownes something. It is not just a chore. Others won't do it. Intended. Or, if they do, it is a debt of sorts. Consequenses. Say the cat box gets too dirty. The bathroom stinks. People notice, but more importantly, the one who owns it notices eventually. Then the dots get connected. My wife would have them do meals, planning, money, store. And then make them do it. We ate the outcome. Lol (was interesting at times) Doing it this way does carry some risk. Say a light meal because someone did not think it through the planning, or shitty school lunch one day because same, or someone got the munchies. But, just make sure it is livable, not super ugly. I did car stuff, fixing things. The kids would check things, and do upkeep. I did double check these. But out of sight. Oil, lights, tires. Same for the yard. For a time, I was self employed. One older daughter did billing and books. Think language immersion. It is like that. Let them sink, and they will swim. Or, if not, pull them out, let them be kids, and try again. Often they would ask me for something.
raz32dust 8y ago
I find two problems with these kinds of studies: (1) How are you defining "happiness"? If you define happiness as social interaction, obviously the introverts will be "unhappy". Here, this study seems to define it as "psychological well-being (measured by self-esteem, life satisfaction, and happiness)". Is being unsatisfied bad? I would argue that it is not necessarily true. Unsatisfied people tend to bring change to society. So what are we trying to optimize for? You improve what you measure. Are we measuring the right metric? If having high levels of dopamine is happiness, is it ok to inject everyone with dopamine to make them "happy"? (2) Are these activities symptoms of unhappiness or causes? I think they are just symptoms. The more I study about this, the more I feel that "unhappiness" is more of a trait. Mostly genes and internal hormones and chemistry and biology. This constant push to be "happy" makes life worse for the "sad" people.
- eiieirurjdndjd 8y ago
  To be satisfied means having one’s own needs or desires met. What we are optimizing for, in this case, is people’s self-reported evaluation of their own value function. That being said, I think there is merit to your second point, although I don’t believe we have enough evidence to know.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    > That being said, I think there is merit to your second point, although I don’t believe we have enough evidence to know. There was a nice research summary posted on LessWrong some long time ago: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZbgCx2ntD5eu8Cno9/how-to-be-happy https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZbgCx2ntD5eu8Cno9/how-to-be-... It mentions various "factors that correlate with subjective well-being (individuals' own assessments of their happiness and life satisfaction)". Quoting from it: <<< Factors that don't correlate much with happiness include: age[7], gender[8], parenthood[9], intelligence[10], physical attractiveness[11], and money[12] (as long as you're above the poverty line). Factors that correlate moderately with happiness include: health[13], social activity[14], and religiosity[15]. Factors that correlate strongly with happiness include: genetics[16], love and relationship satisfaction[17], and work satisfaction[18]. (...) Genes account for about 50% of the variance in happiness[19]. Even lottery winners and newly-made quadriplegics do not see as much of a change in happiness as you would expect[20]. Presumably, genes shape your happiness by shaping your personality, which is known to be quite heritable[21]. So which personality traits tend to correlate most with happiness? Extroversion is among the best predictors of happiness[22], as are conscientiousness, agreeableness, self-esteem, and optimism[23]. >>> Numbers I put in square brackets in the quote above are all references to papers. The article goes on to discuss how those correlates suggest effective ways of improving your own happiness. I'm not in the field so I won't judge the quality of the referenced research, or how much results have changed since 2011, but still, it seems that we do know quite a lot about this. (Also note that, despite it being very unpopular fact, genes seem to pop up as strong - even leading - predictor in very many personal traits, including intelligence.)
mirimir 8y ago
Based on my (arguably hazy, at this point) childhood memories, maybe what's making teens unhappy isn't so much smartphone use, but better networking with other teens.
- Broken_Hippo 8y ago
  Based on my own memories, smartphone use would have been a bonus. I went through times with literally zero friends. It upped to a small group of 3-5, and after we moved I only really had 1 friend for a few years. That time with no friends: For a few preteen years, I didn't do my homework, which meant I got lunch detention. I had loose friendships with some kids I knew in elementary school, but we didn't speak in school. Then we moved when I was 13. I got labeled lesbian and people ignored me for the rest of the year. (I'm bisexual, but didn't really realize I was looking at the time) I made a few friends from other middle schools the first year of high school, hence the small group of friends. I remember getting AOL my last year of high school - for a short time, anyway, until I ran up the bill due to the hourly billing. It was wonderful to simply talk to other folks my age, one of which also got snail mail for a while. I felt less lonely. It makes it really hard for me to understand the internet making folks lonely or unhappy - it has always enhanced my life to this day when I've had regular accesss (I'm 40 now). I even met my spouse playing a text-based MMORPG, so I wouldn't even have my life without it. Maybe this is different for kids that are more "normal" than I ever was.
onli 8y ago
How come that video arcades are in that list? I know that in some countries they still exist, but as relevant part of teenage culture? Hard to believe.
b0rsuk 8y ago
My hypothesis for which I have only anecdotal evidence is that us evolved monkeys still thrive with face to face social activity. We need body language, voice, faces, and even touch. A sense of community. If you look at the chart, pretty much all activities correlated with happines are social. I'm an atheist and I interpret positive effects of religion on wellbeing is that churches gathering places, and prayer is close to meditation. And social media so down on the list... it's a SUBSTITUTE of normal interaction.
- mrmrcoleman 8y ago
  Your hypothesis is supported to some extent by this: https://stpauls.vxcommunity.com/Issue/Us-Experiment-On-Infants-Withholding-Affection/13213 https://stpauls.vxcommunity.com/Issue/Us-Experiment-On-Infan... TL;DR if you feed new born babies but don't give them any human affection they die. (I heard about this a long time ago but have never found the actual research so there's a chance this isn't true.)
  - baq 8y ago
    Not exactly this but close enough IMHO: Romanian orphanages during dictatorship https://amp.livescience.com/21778-early-neglect-alters-kids-brains.html https://amp.livescience.com/21778-early-neglect-alters-kids-...
norswap 8y ago
The basic thesis might be true in general, but the bias in treatment is so apparent: > Instead, [listening to music] often means a teen who has shut himself in his room or used her earbuds as an armor against social interaction. And that's what garbage journalism looks like, kids.
- nv-vn 8y ago
  The fact that TV news is so highly correlated with happiness basically reveals that something significant is wrong with the data.
AtlasBarfed 8y ago
Sleep and exercise are king?
xellisx 8y ago
I'll take the down votes, but when I saw the title in my RSS feed, my initial answer was "Eachother.
caiocaiocaio 8y ago
I think the screen time-happiness causation might be backwards. When I was a miserable, angsty teen, messing around on the computer was the only time I could focus on something and distract myself from being extremely emotional. Being around my friends generally made me anxious and depressed. I was drawn to the computer because I consciously knew it was relief from unhappiness.
jchw 8y ago
I did and still do a lot of the 'unhappy' activities and few of the 'happy' activities. I seem fine. What gives?

116 points by prostoalex 8y ago

Obviously it's beyond the purview of the study, but I have to imagine the correlations aren't too far off for adults either.

trukterious 8y ago

They sing while they're playing and/or working at the computer.

stephengillie 8y ago
"But mom, I'm trying to show my Minecraft castle to my uncle!"

sargun 8y ago

This seems obvious...as the author says, face-to-face interaction leads to happier (people) teens (bar sleep). People with friends seem to spend more time face-to-face with other people. This seems like a no-brainer.

dmreedy 8y ago
Sometimes the results of science map to our intuition. Sometimes they don't. Both outcomes are interesting, and neither should be assumed.
VLM 8y ago
The simple and traditional "introversion = evil extroversion = good" meme is tempting, but alternative explanations are possible. For the majority, which are introverted, possibly "everything must be social on smartphones" combined with non-face-to-face interaction means phone-time means they never get that alone time to recharge and feel better, can never quite get away from the dreaded notification pull-down drawer. Imagine a world where cultural pressure combined with advanced social media technology makes meditation and introspection and privacy and serenity impossible; for some people that would be heaven, others, hell, regardless which, its certainly what we have now. Another interesting theory, possibly even accurate: kid-only interaction is inherently bad, in the "Lord of the Flies" sense. Adult interaction might be good, Cross-age tribal interaction might be good. Possibly all kid-only interaction is bad and has always been bad; its certainly very artificial and non-evolutionary and pre-social media there have been critiques of the culture produced by kids interacting solely with other kids. If that theory is correct, then a hand-held device that pumps more of something that can only be poisonous would likely make most kids more unhappy on average. If a culture of "Lord of the Flies" sucked, then "Lord of the Flies, now as a social phone app" is merely going to suck more.
- mirimir 8y ago
  When I was a kid, I generally avoided other kids. With a few exceptions. Because, as you say, "Lord of the Flies" bullshit. And damn, I like that: social media = "Lord of the Flies" :)

jklein11 8y ago

Is psychologytoday considered an authority in the psychology space? This isn't specifically about this article but I have read a number of psychologytoday articles recently and they feel like their are opinion pieces loosely backed by studies. This article seems like pretty sound advice, but sometimes I worry that some articles get presented as cold hard scientific facts when they are really just one model or theory.

TangoTrotFox 8y ago
The replication crisis in psychology started by selecting high impact papers published in reputable psychological journals. Cold hard scientific facts and psychology simply do not go together. And that's not necessarily a condemnation of the field, but rather just a statement that it should be viewed as observations with proposed explanations rather than 'cold hard scientific fact.' For instance I think this little article does a good job of making clear to the reader that what they're discussing is entirely a correlation. There might be reasons for this, or it could just be entirely spurious.
- BayesStreet 8y ago
  No one should really be considered an authority in the field of psychology. Sure they can get things right sometimes but it's not rigorous enough fundamentally to add much validity. It's their bread and butter to spam NHST at the data until something sticks.
thomasfedb 8y ago
Definately looks like pop-psychology, a grain of salt would be worthwhile.

konraditurbe 8y ago

I'm very happy developing mobile solutions....

stephengillie 8y ago

Hang out with friends, goto the mall or other hangouts, play Minecraft, watch Youtube and Twitch and Vine and try to make their own videos, ride bicycles, and argue with their parents. A few things have changed, but teen-age is largely the same as it was for us.

bsheir74 8y ago
No its not. Read the authors book, igen. Crucial difference - kids are more depressed and lonely
- stephengillie 8y ago
  These are what my happy nieces do. What is the author's source? A paywalled summarizing study that analyzed data from other studies: http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Femo0000403 http://psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Femo0000403 - Was any primary research conducted? You'll have to pay $12 to find out.
  - mirimir 8y ago
    Damn :( sci-hub •• Search for a proxy to download an article •• Decreases in Psychological Well-Being Among American Adolescents After 2012 and Links to Screen Time During the Rise of Smartphone Technology. Twenge 2018 10.1037 / emo0000403 no suitable proxies found
- jack9 8y ago
  > kids are more depressed and lonely > No its not Yes it is. More is not "largely different", regardless of study rigor.

koala_man 8y ago

I first read this as a condemnation of phone use, but that may just have been a bias. On a second reading, I found that it was very careful in specifying that all observations were correlations: >Because this analysis is correlational, we can’t tell if these activities cause happiness, happiness causes teens to engage in these activities more, or if the same type of teens do both. I'd be very interested in seeing a randomized trial to find causations, but the ethical implications get in the way one again.

teenthrowaway 8y ago

And not a word about sex or masturbation, because of course no teen ever has spent any time at all thinking about the first or doing the second. I wonder how much happier the world would be if we just let teens fuck each other once they puberty.

gumby 8y ago

For some reason it jumped out at me that they considered time in religious services as a measurable component of how an ordinary person might spend their time. I can see how it might be relevant to the topic at hand but it's quite uncommon for me to encounter a normative discussion of religious activity as an unremarkable thing. Is it common (i.e. do I live in a bubble) or is it a marker of something about this article that I am missing? I pretty much only encounter mention of religion in the news headlines and am not sure I even know anyone who attends any kind of religious service more than two or three times a year. It may be quite common and I might live in a bubble, but then is it mentioned routinely?

mbrameld 8y ago
If there are churches near you why not drive by one or two any random Sunday morning around 10:30 or 11:00. Do it a few weekends in a row and see if your impression changes.
- gumby 8y ago
  There is literally one at the corner of the next block and parking is never an issue on Sunday. I walk my dog past a few and apart from being well maintained they seem pretty deserted. The exception is the one downtown Palo Alto where Harold and Maude was filmed, but mainly I see wedding parties coming out on Saturdays.
  - solresol 8y ago
    Anecdata: ACLF in Mountain View had so many people attending that they had to have volunteers direct traffic. (To be fair, that was about a decade ago, so it might have changed. And even now it just looks like an office block rather than a church, so there's no way you would pick up on it when walking past.)
Broken_Hippo 8y ago
I think it depends on where you are. I lived in Indiana the first 35 years of life, generally in towns with 3000-70,000 people. It was quite common for folks to go to church. Single? Want friends? and so on? You needed church. It was really, really common. To the point that folks weren't as willing to be openly athiest or customers at a retail place to assume that since employees were nice, they must all be good Christians. It was definitely mentioned, and wasn't uncommon for folks to ask where others went to church. I always got the impression that larger cities or different areas were more free with this sort of thing. I now live in Norway, and I know very few folks that spend a lot of time at church. There definitely aren't nearly as many of them here in town, and I think half the churches are as much of a tourist attraction as they are places for congregation. There is also more activities that aren't connected with any sort of religion here as well - organized volunteer work, for example, with no affiliation with religion.

tormeh 8y ago

Is there anything more stereotypical for a depressed teenager to do than listen to music? That's a mystery that solves itself. Sitting alone, staring into a wall while listening to music is not a thing most healthy people do. For most, music is a secondary activity. Anyway, I don't think the screen matters much per se. Being social in person is good. Not being so is bad.

yeowMeng 8y ago
uhmm.. Staring into a book while listening to silence.. staring into a wall listening to music.. These are introspective journeys. You can’t expect everyone to be social in person from day 13.. Some ppl need time before they bloom socially. Social blooming is different for everyone.
ken 8y ago
> For most, music is a secondary activity. This is strange to me. It seems like a modern change -- is it? Mostly today I see people listening to music while doing something else, or hearing it as background for movies/TV/games/commercials/stores. In the past, we didn't think it was strange to just listen to a record. That was how we heard music. It wasn't a sign of depression. (Before 2005, the most I ever did to music was drive a car.) Music used to be a more social activity due to technological limitations, but one consequence is that it was more often a primary activity. I suspect that I have some condition (hidden hearing loss, perhaps), as I can't just listen to music while doing something else. If there's music playing, my brain can't ignore it, or background it. Maybe these people who listen to music in private simply aren't physically able to appreciate it the way most others are. The constant noise of modern life causes anxiety for me, too. Concerts may be more social but they're also a lot more expensive. Bumbershoot was $10 in 1997, $35 in 2007, and $130 this year. You can't blame teens for choosing to listen to music in private. I don't know how any teens could afford to go to concerts today.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  Ticket prices for bigger bands have definitely gone way up. I'm very happy that the genres I listen to are still rather niche and out of the mainstream. The most expensive concert tickets I've ever bought were less than $100, and that was an arena show with two fairly big local bands.

aklemm 8y ago

This is a good and simple thing to focus on. My working theory—-as a parent of a soon-to-be teenager—was that teens are missing out on any true responsibility. No one expects them to do anything that actually is crucial to the family or community. That said, I don’t yet know what that will be for my kids. Maybe some kind of service thing weekly, or maybe it’s some critical chores.

ddingus 8y ago
We incorporated our teens into the family. They did not always get it right. But, when that happened, everyone looking to them? Yeah, they see they matter. IMHO, some of this is a very good thing. No need to load them down. Childhood is special. But, having a thing or few that they actually own is good all around. I was brought up a similar way. I valued it
- autarch 8y ago
  "into the family" ... what? Did you mean to say "family business"? If so, please post more details, that sounds interesting.
  - ddingus 8y ago
    Everyone, as they gain skill, and begin to "wake up" as people, ownes something. It is not just a chore. Others won't do it. Intended. Or, if they do, it is a debt of sorts. Consequenses. Say the cat box gets too dirty. The bathroom stinks. People notice, but more importantly, the one who owns it notices eventually. Then the dots get connected. My wife would have them do meals, planning, money, store. And then make them do it. We ate the outcome. Lol (was interesting at times) Doing it this way does carry some risk. Say a light meal because someone did not think it through the planning, or shitty school lunch one day because same, or someone got the munchies. But, just make sure it is livable, not super ugly. I did car stuff, fixing things. The kids would check things, and do upkeep. I did double check these. But out of sight. Oil, lights, tires. Same for the yard. For a time, I was self employed. One older daughter did billing and books. Think language immersion. It is like that. Let them sink, and they will swim. Or, if not, pull them out, let them be kids, and try again. Often they would ask me for something.

raz32dust 8y ago

I find two problems with these kinds of studies: (1) How are you defining "happiness"? If you define happiness as social interaction, obviously the introverts will be "unhappy". Here, this study seems to define it as "psychological well-being (measured by self-esteem, life satisfaction, and happiness)". Is being unsatisfied bad? I would argue that it is not necessarily true. Unsatisfied people tend to bring change to society. So what are we trying to optimize for? You improve what you measure. Are we measuring the right metric? If having high levels of dopamine is happiness, is it ok to inject everyone with dopamine to make them "happy"? (2) Are these activities symptoms of unhappiness or causes? I think they are just symptoms. The more I study about this, the more I feel that "unhappiness" is more of a trait. Mostly genes and internal hormones and chemistry and biology. This constant push to be "happy" makes life worse for the "sad" people.

eiieirurjdndjd 8y ago
To be satisfied means having one’s own needs or desires met. What we are optimizing for, in this case, is people’s self-reported evaluation of their own value function. That being said, I think there is merit to your second point, although I don’t believe we have enough evidence to know.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  > That being said, I think there is merit to your second point, although I don’t believe we have enough evidence to know. There was a nice research summary posted on LessWrong some long time ago: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZbgCx2ntD5eu8Cno9/how-to-be-happy https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/ZbgCx2ntD5eu8Cno9/how-to-be-... It mentions various "factors that correlate with subjective well-being (individuals' own assessments of their happiness and life satisfaction)". Quoting from it: <<< Factors that don't correlate much with happiness include: age[7], gender[8], parenthood[9], intelligence[10], physical attractiveness[11], and money[12] (as long as you're above the poverty line). Factors that correlate moderately with happiness include: health[13], social activity[14], and religiosity[15]. Factors that correlate strongly with happiness include: genetics[16], love and relationship satisfaction[17], and work satisfaction[18]. (...) Genes account for about 50% of the variance in happiness[19]. Even lottery winners and newly-made quadriplegics do not see as much of a change in happiness as you would expect[20]. Presumably, genes shape your happiness by shaping your personality, which is known to be quite heritable[21]. So which personality traits tend to correlate most with happiness? Extroversion is among the best predictors of happiness[22], as are conscientiousness, agreeableness, self-esteem, and optimism[23]. >>> Numbers I put in square brackets in the quote above are all references to papers. The article goes on to discuss how those correlates suggest effective ways of improving your own happiness. I'm not in the field so I won't judge the quality of the referenced research, or how much results have changed since 2011, but still, it seems that we do know quite a lot about this. (Also note that, despite it being very unpopular fact, genes seem to pop up as strong - even leading - predictor in very many personal traits, including intelligence.)

mirimir 8y ago

Based on my (arguably hazy, at this point) childhood memories, maybe what's making teens unhappy isn't so much smartphone use, but better networking with other teens.

Broken_Hippo 8y ago
Based on my own memories, smartphone use would have been a bonus. I went through times with literally zero friends. It upped to a small group of 3-5, and after we moved I only really had 1 friend for a few years. That time with no friends: For a few preteen years, I didn't do my homework, which meant I got lunch detention. I had loose friendships with some kids I knew in elementary school, but we didn't speak in school. Then we moved when I was 13. I got labeled lesbian and people ignored me for the rest of the year. (I'm bisexual, but didn't really realize I was looking at the time) I made a few friends from other middle schools the first year of high school, hence the small group of friends. I remember getting AOL my last year of high school - for a short time, anyway, until I ran up the bill due to the hourly billing. It was wonderful to simply talk to other folks my age, one of which also got snail mail for a while. I felt less lonely. It makes it really hard for me to understand the internet making folks lonely or unhappy - it has always enhanced my life to this day when I've had regular accesss (I'm 40 now). I even met my spouse playing a text-based MMORPG, so I wouldn't even have my life without it. Maybe this is different for kids that are more "normal" than I ever was.

onli 8y ago

How come that video arcades are in that list? I know that in some countries they still exist, but as relevant part of teenage culture? Hard to believe.

b0rsuk 8y ago

My hypothesis for which I have only anecdotal evidence is that us evolved monkeys still thrive with face to face social activity. We need body language, voice, faces, and even touch. A sense of community. If you look at the chart, pretty much all activities correlated with happines are social. I'm an atheist and I interpret positive effects of religion on wellbeing is that churches gathering places, and prayer is close to meditation. And social media so down on the list... it's a SUBSTITUTE of normal interaction.

mrmrcoleman 8y ago
Your hypothesis is supported to some extent by this: https://stpauls.vxcommunity.com/Issue/Us-Experiment-On-Infants-Withholding-Affection/13213 https://stpauls.vxcommunity.com/Issue/Us-Experiment-On-Infan... TL;DR if you feed new born babies but don't give them any human affection they die. (I heard about this a long time ago but have never found the actual research so there's a chance this isn't true.)
- baq 8y ago
  Not exactly this but close enough IMHO: Romanian orphanages during dictatorship https://amp.livescience.com/21778-early-neglect-alters-kids-brains.html https://amp.livescience.com/21778-early-neglect-alters-kids-...

norswap 8y ago

The basic thesis might be true in general, but the bias in treatment is so apparent: > Instead, [listening to music] often means a teen who has shut himself in his room or used her earbuds as an armor against social interaction. And that's what garbage journalism looks like, kids.

nv-vn 8y ago
The fact that TV news is so highly correlated with happiness basically reveals that something significant is wrong with the data.

AtlasBarfed 8y ago

Sleep and exercise are king?

xellisx 8y ago

I'll take the down votes, but when I saw the title in my RSS feed, my initial answer was "Eachother.

caiocaiocaio 8y ago

I think the screen time-happiness causation might be backwards. When I was a miserable, angsty teen, messing around on the computer was the only time I could focus on something and distract myself from being extremely emotional. Being around my friends generally made me anxious and depressed. I was drawn to the computer because I consciously knew it was relief from unhappiness.

jchw 8y ago

I did and still do a lot of the 'unhappy' activities and few of the 'happy' activities. I seem fine. What gives?