I agree about the dissociation between verbal awareness/insight/conscious perception about mood and other things, like quality of life or utility. However, what

I agree about the dissociation between verbal awareness/insight/conscious perception about mood and other things, like quality of life or utility. However, what does quality of life matter if it is unrelated to emotional state? E.g., what does it matter what my quality of life is an economic sense (broadly speaking) if my mood is totally different? Putting that aside, there's also this kind of perception of state versus actual state issue which is maybe deeper or trickier to think through too. I agree with what you're bringing up here, to me I think though it leads to more problems with the hedonic adaptation hypothesis rather than fewer. That is, if all these problems about happiness exist, then what are all those studies measuring? It's a challenging thing to think through, and there's probably ways of addressing the OP's question about whether or not everyone is more miserable lately. I'm just not convinced the hedonometer approach is the best way (although I'm not sure it isn't).