9 ms·

Appearances vs. Experiences: What Makes Us Happy

229 points by prostoalex 6y ago

thaniri 6y ago
I can at least anecdotally say that I am in a privileged position of being enormously happier after COVID-19 shut my workplace down and every employee was told to work from home. I associate this entirely with my commute being reduced to nothing. I hope working from home in IT becomes the future standard. Big expensive cities are not worth it. To expand on the article. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people in my age group (18-24 years old) are desperately trying to find happiness in "experiences" but finding emptiness due to social media. Often for them, it is not achieving something amazing like a long bicycle trip, or summiting a mountain that brings them joy, but they are thinking about the resulting Instagram photos instead. Communication tools like Snapchat are a little bit healthier. Most people use Snapchat not to show off, but rather to regularly share their lives with a small group of friends. Certain social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok seem entirely designed to try to get their users to pursue building a following and attach their happiness to that. Some unfortunate people end up having all the joy of traveling and meeting new people robbed from them as a result. They know that "experiences" are better for happiness than possessions, but somehow the result is a bastardized version the actual experience. Knowing all of this, I am not taking a holier-than-thou position. I myself have accounts on several social media platforms, but make a conscious effort to not get drawn into their dopamine manipulating designs.
- ZephyrBlu 6y ago
  > Some unfortunate people end up having all the joy of traveling and meeting new people robbed from them as a result. They know that "experiences" are better for happiness than possessions, but somehow the result is a bastardized version the actual experience I'm in the same age group and this is what I don't get. If you're enjoying your experience so much, why the hell are you trying so hard to create content for social media? Just sit back and relax. I think the biggest thing for people our age (And probably a bit older as well) is that they lack purpose. Social media is so popular because it's instant gratification, and a great way to attempt to fill that void.
  - yetihehe 6y ago
    > I think the biggest thing for people our age (And probably a bit older as well) is that they lack purpose. Do you have any good purposes? I already have several good ones applicable only to me, but what would a generally applicable one look like?
    - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
      I want to have a positive impact on the communities I'm apart of by building amazing products for them. I'm specifically interested in B2C SaaS products at the moment. That's it for now, nice and simple. I think the community part is pretty generally applicable.
      - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
        Except if you are poor. I've honestly been to poor to be able to volunteer because I either worked weird hours and couldn't volunteer regularly or couldn't afford the gasoline necessary to volunteer. And I'm lucky - I didn't have children. Folks with children have it worse, though a portion says it does give some purpose. I don't know as I'm childless and plan on remaining that way. A just-over-minimum wage job isn't really having a positive impact on the community and even if it did, you aren't treated like it does.
  - buran77 6y ago
    > If you're enjoying your experience so much, why the hell are you trying so hard to create content for social media? Because many also enjoy the experience of being admired or envied by others, perhaps even more than the original experience itself. The original experience might even be "the necessary evil"* to get the appearance. Anything that can turn into an exhilarating "high" given by the appreciation of your followers. Like any high you have to chase bigger and bigger experiences to get the satisfaction. Those moments pay off whether they're pleasure or pain because they all translate into literally days (/s) of appreciation from your followers plus a story to throw at the dinner table once in a while for another light dose of the drug. I think it's not really about lacking a purpose. Just perhaps that the purpose doesn't give them the same or enough satisfaction. Like any other "drug", you don't need to lack purpose to take it. After all being admired can be a purpose in itself. And this by no means applies only to social media. People buy expensive watches, or cars, or houses where the maintenance cost itself reminds them every time of the downsides but other people's admiration more than makes up for it. * the popular Everest base camp hikes, marathons, and others. Things most people don't necessarily enjoy yet a disproportionate number of them advertise them on social media.
- lowwave 6y ago
  >Certain social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok seem entirely designed to try to get their users to pursue building a following and attach their happiness to that. Some unfortunate people end up having all the joy of traveling and meeting new people robbed from them as a result. They know that "experiences" are better for happiness than possessions, but somehow the result is a bastardized version the actual experience. Yeah, not surprised. Talked to a neuroeconomic PHD friend once, and he said social media FB definitely putting in a lot money in R&D to make their product as additive as possible.
  - hycaria 6y ago
    A claim that surely takes a neuroeconomic PhD to make !
  - gonzo41 6y ago
    Remember in the 90's when everyone thought Bill Gates was terrible and now everyone views have tempered to view Bill as a really smart savvy businessman. I don't think the same fate is in store for Zuck. I believe history will judge him harshly. Mostly because he's damaging children more than anyone else.
  - moneywoes 6y ago
    I can confirm this anecdotally. If I don't open Instagram for a day, I'll always get a push notification prompting me to see some of the stories my friends have posted. Like clockwork.
- nicbou 6y ago
  > Often for them, it is not achieving something amazing like a long bicycle trip, or summiting a mountain that brings them joy, but they are thinking about the resulting Instagram photos instead. This reflects my experience. When you have an audience, you have a certain pressure to perform. You subconsciously start framing everything in terms of potential likes. Having fun isn't enough, you have to prove it. Checking in can easily become more important than being there. I don't post much anymore. My profiles are all private. I do not turn moments into content. I just try to enjoy being there. It certainly improved my experience.
- monadic2 6y ago
  While there’s a grain of truth to this, you’re neglecting the simultaneous experience of self consciousness of this at the same time. I believe there’s a David Foster Wallace short story about this somewhere in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
- tsycho 6y ago
  Great points. Once you get used to the dopamine high of people "liking" your posts, it can get hard to relax and enjoy the actual experience. And switching off your phone/camera is not really what you want either, because you genuinely want to save the memories digitally. My solution was to basically completely stop posting publicly. I still take lots of photos on trips, because I enjoy photography too, and want to save the photos, but I am doing it for myself. There's no pressure of other people liking it since apart from my close family, no one will get to see them [1]. And as a result, my photographs have organically skewed towards capturing more faces and natural expressions, and not just landmarks. [1] From a tooling perspective, Google Photos private albums are awesome for my use case.
  - piffey 6y ago
    Fellow photographer here. I still participate on Instagram, but rarely and only posting prints of my photographs now. I've found that the act of making a print, hanging it, or putting it into a "photo book" type form is way more satisfying of a medium to share with others. I find myself posting less and less on social media and enjoying my own work in that context more and more. It has also led to an improvement in my own work just from the amount of time I spend looking at photo books and thinking about how they're built, sequencing, ties between disparate photographs, etc. If you aren't printing your work now I highly recommend getting a good printer and making some large displays of your favorites for your home. Next time you have people over they'll be asking for prints.
    - grugagag 6y ago
      Can you recommend a good printer for large prints?
- rsynnott 6y ago
  I'm not sure how _new_ this is, though. Here's Monty Python on the subject of people inflicting their holiday photos on others, 50 years ago, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAxkcPoLYcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAxkcPoLYcQ At least these days people that way inclined can get all the fun of showing off their photos without actually holding anyone hostage on a sofa.
- doublerabbit 6y ago
  > I hope working from home in IT becomes the future standard. Big expensive cities are not worth it. I don't. I hate working from home. When my apartment is all I have to run away from life, adjusting it to be a working space just totally wrecks my personal psyche. Sure a laptop can be turned off but knowing the desk I use for general is now my work desk ruins the whole environment for me. At least from the Office I could come home and know it was personal. Everything work related is in the office and everything home is personal.
mrxd 6y ago
But what if the students assigned to the less desirable building really were less happy, but they had made other changes to their life to make up for it? Maybe they spent less time in the building, or improved the aesthetics of their room, or spent more time on hobbies or socializing. I suspect confirmation bias leads researchers to find proof of their initial hypothesis without ruling out other explanations.
gnicholas 6y ago
> A person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40 percent more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office. Living in downtown Palo Alto probably costs 100% more than living in Pleasanton, which is roughly a one hour commute. > While a bigger garden and spare bedroom soon cease to be novel, every day’s commute is a little bit different, meaning we can never get quite used to it. I wonder if this is one of the reasons big tech companies run buses — to make the commute less painful and blend into the background of life.
- so33 6y ago
  > Living in downtown Palo Alto probably costs 100% more than living in Pleasanton, which is roughly a one hour commute. As I understand, there’s heavy resistance to building any sort of density in Palo Alto. That will, of course, skew the cost of living. I believe that people are constantly priced out of the city as well (i.e. they wanted to stay but couldn’t). > I wonder if this is one of the reasons big tech companies run buses — to make the commute less painful and blend into the background of life. The American perception toward public transit is that it is unreliable, crowded, dirty and/or filled with poor people. Knowing that there will be a seat on a clean bus to take you home without much worry is a major sell and can convince people to ditch their cars (whether or not the equivalent public transit commute actually matches the above perception). When I was in a situation where I could take the “tech buses” regularly, they for sure helped make a long commute bearable.
- TwoBit 6y ago
  I worked in Menlo Park and commuted from Castro Valley. It was 40 minutes average each way, but I could afford a house and traffic wasn't nearly as bad by me as it was over there.
- esoterica 6y ago
  > Living in downtown Palo Alto probably costs 100% more than living in Pleasanton, which is roughly a one hour commute. If you spend 10% of your post tax income on rent, you only need a 10% increase in post-tax income to cancel out a 100% increase in rent.
- bradlys 6y ago
hyko 6y ago
This article–and the many like it-assume that there is some universal truth that experiences will make you happier than mere things, when this is not true. I derive a great deal of happiness from nice things. I suspect I’m not alone, and that people like me are the reason that the whole human environment isn’t just a pile of half-arsed crap designed to facilitate only certain types of approved experiences. We notice the qualities of the things around us every single moment of the day, and they can bring us great joy (or the opposite). Materialism is clearly not in vogue (and I suspect there is a moral dimension to this), but for some people it will make them far happier than trying to chase experiences. I suspect there are many natural materialists out there struggling to conform to the new societal norm that only the ephemeral can lead to psychological salvation, and that all desire for material riches is a sin.
- so33 6y ago
  I don’t think that’s the thesis of the article. Rather, I think the article is saying that nice things alone don’t compensate for the opportunity costs and negative second-order effects you incur when obtaining _some_ nice things. To use the article’s example of living in a city versus a suburb: If you can get a house in a suburb and can commute 15 minutes or so and are within walking distance of the stuff you care about (including your friends/family) and don’t value any of the perks of living in a city environment (or heavily dislike the downsides), then go for it. But a big house in the suburbs _alone_ isn’t automatically going to make your life better, yet in my experience that’s a very dominant mode of thinking.
- bschne 6y ago
  I had the same thought when I first read this as I don't care much for some experiences that seem to be very highly regarded as if they were guaranteed to make your life richer (at least in my generation) and at the same time I appreciate some material things and the physical configuration of my surroundings to a degree that some would maybe consider overly materialistic. For some people, nice things can actually affect their life experience, while some "experiences" (as in activities) feel rather meaningless. I think the point is that you should aim to pursue whatever positively affects how you experience your life and not what looks good on the surface only, regardless of whether the entity under consideration is a material thing or an immaterial activity. What a lot of well-designed "nice things" achieve is not just surface level beauty, but actually working well and "feeling right".
jazzabeanie 6y ago
I tried to review the things in my life that this article might identify as a misplaced goal. Almost all of them are tied to experiences. Maintaining, harvesting, and admiring my garden is a soure of pleasure in my life. I can say the same thing about my bike, my computer, my phone, my guitar, etc. The example of sacrificing a short commute for a bigger house in the suburbs isn't so clear if people that you care about also live in the suburbs, or the house allows you experiences that you couldn't otherwise have - building things in a workshop, raising a large family, etc.
- so33 6y ago
  I’ve said this above but I don’t think this is an incompatible view with what the article says. But the predominant attitude is that everyone just ought to move to the suburbs eventually because it’s just “obviously” so much better, with the bigger living space and the lower density. We’re seeing this attitude pop up with COVID-19 once again. For me, I so heavily despise the experience of being in a car for even half an hour. So unless I find a neighborhood where everything is nearby or maybe I can bike everywhere (not so easy in the US!) none of these supposed quality-of-life improvements will outweigh the downside for me. (And yes, I have owned a car and used it for day-to-day stuff. I universally hated every single moment I sat in that car.)
ookblah 6y ago
having moved thru a number of diff apartments and diff cities i've found the balance for me, personally. the example in the article is very true, shortening commute and location of a home is probably #1 on my list of things that can increase your quality of life. not sure if this falls under appearances, but i've also found that spending a more on the "quality" of your home or items (not size) also makes a noticeable diff. having amenities that are important to you, say... a gym, doorman or package delivery stuff, "new" appliances did a lot more for me than i expected. only when i moved to a cheaper place at the expense of those things did those annoyances crop up. i think in general this has led me over the years to buy less stuff, but spend more on quality or aesthetics or what not, even how it makes you feel. most likely placebo, but you tend to take better care and pride of things you feel you've "invested" more in. i don't throw around my clothes or shoes. i dealt with a no frills corded hoover i had since college and hated vacuuming, then decided to get a cordless dyson cordless and now it's a "joy" to clean on the weekends or randomly lol. dumb example, but you get the point.
boffinism 6y ago
Surprised that having a big garden is dismissed as a superficial benefit. My intuition based on personal experience would be that the freedom to potter about in a garden every day (well, local climate permitting) would be a reliable source of regular positive experiences. But maybe that's more the difference between a garden and no garden, and the size of the garden matters less than I assume?
- arslnjmn 6y ago
  I have a relevant anecdote to share. My father [0] bought a pair for African grey parrots [1] last year. Both were around 6 months old at that time. They do require attention and looking after them has certainly brought happiness to him. [0] Runs a business which loses $200-$300 per month and works only 2-3 hours a day. So sort of retired. [1] I'm not encouraging keeping animals, endangered or not, as pets or in cages.
- TwoBit 6y ago
  I love my back yard, which I couldn't have living right in the city.
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  The four dead plants on my balcony would disagree
- KineticLensman 6y ago
  > My intuition based on personal experience would be that the freedom to potter about in a garden every day (well, local climate permitting) would be a reliable source of regular positive experiences This is my exact experience. I've always enjoyed pottering about as a form of mindfulness. I made it part of my daily routine during Lockdown. The garden is large which increases the amount of pottering available. In the words of the Zen masters: "Before enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood. After enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood". Although for me 'fetch water' = 'pull weeds'.
- ip26 6y ago
  I would guess it's a significant benefit for certain people who have the dedication to actually keep a garden- but it seems pretty clear that most people don't successfully keep gardens long term.
leon1717 6y ago
You just gotta be able to differentiate happiness from fun.
alexmingoia 6y ago
”There is a direct linear downwards relationship between commute time and life satisfaction, but there’s no linear upwards correlation between house size and life satisfaction.” But is it really true that house size is the reason people commute? My family members commute in order to live in a neighborhood and city they desire, yet live in a small apartment. There are reasons to desire suburbs other than house size, like gardens, parks, safety, silence, etc. And people also commute from a city to the suburbs/office parks, as many tech workers in San Francisco do.
- danielheath 6y ago
  The USA has a... unique... approach to urban planning law, which ensures that most city centers are unpleasant places to live. If you were living in inner-city Melbourne (Australia) - you are close to gardens and parks, and it's one of the safest parts of town. The well-built buildings are quiet to be in (unfortunately there's now many more poorly-built ones which are noisy and too hot/cold).
  - chadcmulligan 6y ago
    Same in Brisbane, inner city Brisbane has an abundance of parks, public transport and places to live, and getting more so. Melbourne's liveability is really influencing Brisbane imho, we're copying a lot of things that make Melbourne good. (and of course its even better because - no victorians ;-))
- ip26 6y ago
  Obviously there are exceptions, but exurbs are basically the manifestation of the described behavior. Suburb development pattern, but because it's in the middle of nowhere & far from everything, large houses are less expensive.
toto444 6y ago
"Living in the suburbs comes at a price: long commutes. Many people spend hours a day behind the wheel, getting to and from work." I wish there is a word to distinguish commute in a car and commute in public transport. The first one is clearly a waste of time. Depending on the person you ask, commuting by public transport can mean : reading a book, learning a new language, watching a series, reading the news, writing a book, ...
- BattyMilk 6y ago
  I disagree that commuting by car is a waste of time vs public transport (depending on the person). I'm someone who cherishes a little piece of solitude every day. I'd be much happier self sufficiently making my way to my place of work in the nice private bubble of a car (even if that means crawling at 3mph in traffic), listening to whatever music or podcast I enjoy, or just being able to think without many distractions, than having to jostle my way on public transport with no privacy or personal space. (disclaimer: I cycle to work, not drive, though I'd rather walk the 3hrs it would take me than the hour on tube and/or busses)
- Oreb 6y ago
  In every city I have lived, commuting by public transport means standing so packed that it’s barely possible to move my arms. Thankfully, I now live in walking distance from my office.
  - mattmar96 6y ago
    Same here. Not a huge fan of reading while standing packed like sardines.
  - TeeWEE 6y ago
    I commuted 1h daily in the netherlands. I was lucky always having a spot in the train, and I could sit in the train for 1h straight. I basically opened my laptop, programmed a little bit. Read a book. Or just listen to the radio. It was a lot of time. However it didnt feel completely wasted. However, now i'm biking in 25m to work. And its a joy. I'm missing it now we're working from home.
seosenior 6y ago
Both
lordnacho 6y ago
Maybe the biggest thing in this psychology-type stuff that's come out recently is how bad people are at knowing their own wants. It's truly stunning for someone who's used to economic thinking - the orthodoxy is that agents know what's good for them - and demands we think about how that affects our economic thinking.
mathew_samuel 6y ago
In the book, there is also insights on how our touchpoints with our city affect our perceptions of it, and how roads play an extreme role in it. For instance, how major roads go ‘through’ the city in the US vs how roads are built ‘around’ the city in Europe increases the touchpoints to the cityscape that makes it more engaging.
neilwilson 6y ago
"Living in the suburbs comes at a price: long commutes. Many people spend hours a day behind the wheel, getting to and from work. On top of that, the dispersed nature of suburbs means that everything from the grocery store to the gym requires more extended periods of time driving." Move the work and the services to the suburbs. For most of human history we worked where we lived. That changed only very recently, and the artificial bifurcation needs to be reversed - particularly now we have the technology to do it, without sacrificing any necessary economies of scale
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- PeterisP 6y ago
  "Move the work and the services to the suburbs." - USA zoning laws generally prohibit that, and zoning is hard to change as local NIMBY activists can effectively block such attempts to change.
lsinger 6y ago
Another anecdote. Me, my wife, and our two kids recently moved. Previously we lived in a large house that looked “special” — old but in good shape. Lots of wood and 4m ceilings. That was a rented place. By chance we found a house smaller and not special at all — a mass-produced townhouse, basically — that we were able to afford buying. For a few us-specific reasons we really wanted to buy a house instead of rent it, so we went ahead. I was a bit scared that it would be a let-down. A downgrade. The house would be less special. I would feel less special. I was certain I would regret it, but it made sense for the family. The opposite happened. It’s a much nicer experience. The house feels more cozy and more modern. The kids have suddenly lost all problems sleeping in their rooms by themselves. They go play in their rooms. They never did that in the previous house. And being a townhouse, there’s a bunch of similar families around — suddenly the kids have friends. I work remotely so there’s not a huge difference work-wise. But I’m much happier and more relaxed knowing the kids are happier and more relaxed.
- Insanity 6y ago
  I suppose that's because, even though it's smaller, it's actually yours. Congratz ;-)
  - lsinger 6y ago
    It will probably be in ~20 years. :) "Owning" it makes a difference in so far as that I can now be absolutely certain that no issue will be handled by the landlord because there isn't one. Definitely increases my perceived agency. The kids are 6 and 9. I think they just feel more comfortable in the more compact living space.
Milank 6y ago
There is no silver bullet. I am lucky to have both options at my disposal - I live in the city, commute to work (~45 minutes by tram, more if I walk, which I do). On the other hand, my parents live in the suburbs, backyard and stuff. Both options have advantages. During the lockdown, apartment was fine, but claustrophobic a little bit. Not many things to do. In the house, you don't even notice it. Especially now, during the summer, garden, fruits, vegetables, swimming pool. On the other hand, living in the city offers more options, like socialising, finding things to do, people with similar interests, training, learning classes for whatever, etc. Both options offer experiences. They talk about an experience of commuting ruining everything. But what about an experience of enjoying personal swimming pool? Eating stuff from your own garden? Kids running around happy, having a tree house versus being limited to the apartment? As I said at the beginning - there's no silver bullet. It's about finding out what you like, what works for you, and then act accordingly (if possible).
- raiflip 6y ago
  Thank you for being fair-minded on city vs suburban living. Too bad the top post is the usual city-hate.
- autokad 6y ago
  I dont like how they didnt back up their claim with data. they never showed that people in the suburbs were actually more unhappy than people in the cities. I only saw anecdotes on commutes. And hey, I feel them. I myself only choose places that I can walk to work, its what I prefer. some sources say that people in cities are less happy than those in smaller cities or rural areas. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/17/people-who-live-in-small-towns-and-rural-areas-are-happier-than-everyone-else-researchers-say/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/17/peopl... Others say different: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-29/u-s-millennials-find-happiness-in-cities-not-small-towns https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-29/u-s-mille... and then further bloomberg articles say the opposite. This is why I was particularly disappointed with their last point. Or is what it is saying is that once you take away the commute, cities loose handily in happiness?
zalkota 6y ago
You should create and buy things that serve and enable the experiences you desire. An example would be a beautiful pool where your family and friends can gather.
noetokyo 6y ago
I mean this is good but it assumes that all people are treated the same way in experiences.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
_jal 6y ago
"[...] for a single person, exchanging a long commute for a short walk to work has the same effect on happiness as finding a new love." I can directly relate to this. I went from spending ~2.5 hours/day on the train to a 15 minute walk about five years ago. It is hard to overstate how much it changed my life for the better.
- cruano 6y ago
  So falling in love with someone that lives far away just evens out
gmaster1440 6y ago
With the risk of coming across as vapid, I believe that a more profound and possibly undermining insight here is that "appearance" is itself an implicit experience of it, meaning that you can't really escape experience or consider something as truly decoupled from experiencing it. With that, "Appearances vs. Experiences" becomes more of a false dichotomy, an argument that privileges certain experiences over others, which is fine, but possibly less effective.
- arrosenberg 6y ago
  You definitely can decouple it. Go to any major National Park in the US or Canada and you will see people who get out of a luxury bus or car, snap 3 pictures and get back in to go to the next scene. To some extent experience is in the eye of the beholder, but I feel pretty good about judging those people as not really experiencing what they came to see.
  - gmaster1440 6y ago
    Fair enough, in your example the tourists who simply take a photo are definitely not getting the same kind of experience as those who choose to go on hikes. I do feel that fits nicely into my argument, which is that we can compare photo opportunity and hiking as two different kinds of experiences, instead of treating one as an appearance vs another as an actual experience. In the end, it's at least possible that the tourists that only took a photo have derived as much personal pleasure and satisfaction as those who invested more time into activities such as hiking, depending on their personalities, interests, and intentions.
supernova87a 6y ago
Well, as I've learned in my own life, you can be told that so many different things have no real impact on your satisfaction after you finally achieve them. But such is the human condition, that you still need to experience for yourself before you learn (generally). If only there were a way to pass the real feeling / understanding to someone else so that we wouldn't all have to bang our heads against the wall and find out for ourselves...

229 points by prostoalex 6y ago

I can at least anecdotally say that I am in a privileged position of being enormously happier after COVID-19 shut my workplace down and every employee was told to work from home. I associate this entirely with my commute being reduced to nothing. I hope working from home in IT becomes the future standard. Big expensive cities are not worth it. To expand on the article. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people in my age group (18-24 years old) are desperately trying to find happiness in "experiences" but finding emptiness due to social media. Often for them, it is not achieving something amazing like a long bicycle trip, or summiting a mountain that brings them joy, but they are thinking about the resulting Instagram photos instead. Communication tools like Snapchat are a little bit healthier. Most people use Snapchat not to show off, but rather to regularly share their lives with a small group of friends. Certain social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok seem entirely designed to try to get their users to pursue building a following and attach their happiness to that. Some unfortunate people end up having all the joy of traveling and meeting new people robbed from them as a result. They know that "experiences" are better for happiness than possessions, but somehow the result is a bastardized version the actual experience. Knowing all of this, I am not taking a holier-than-thou position. I myself have accounts on several social media platforms, but make a conscious effort to not get drawn into their dopamine manipulating designs.

ZephyrBlu 6y ago
> Some unfortunate people end up having all the joy of traveling and meeting new people robbed from them as a result. They know that "experiences" are better for happiness than possessions, but somehow the result is a bastardized version the actual experience I'm in the same age group and this is what I don't get. If you're enjoying your experience so much, why the hell are you trying so hard to create content for social media? Just sit back and relax. I think the biggest thing for people our age (And probably a bit older as well) is that they lack purpose. Social media is so popular because it's instant gratification, and a great way to attempt to fill that void.
- yetihehe 6y ago
  > I think the biggest thing for people our age (And probably a bit older as well) is that they lack purpose. Do you have any good purposes? I already have several good ones applicable only to me, but what would a generally applicable one look like?
  - ZephyrBlu 6y ago
    I want to have a positive impact on the communities I'm apart of by building amazing products for them. I'm specifically interested in B2C SaaS products at the moment. That's it for now, nice and simple. I think the community part is pretty generally applicable.
    - Broken_Hippo 6y ago
      Except if you are poor. I've honestly been to poor to be able to volunteer because I either worked weird hours and couldn't volunteer regularly or couldn't afford the gasoline necessary to volunteer. And I'm lucky - I didn't have children. Folks with children have it worse, though a portion says it does give some purpose. I don't know as I'm childless and plan on remaining that way. A just-over-minimum wage job isn't really having a positive impact on the community and even if it did, you aren't treated like it does.
- buran77 6y ago
  > If you're enjoying your experience so much, why the hell are you trying so hard to create content for social media? Because many also enjoy the experience of being admired or envied by others, perhaps even more than the original experience itself. The original experience might even be "the necessary evil"* to get the appearance. Anything that can turn into an exhilarating "high" given by the appreciation of your followers. Like any high you have to chase bigger and bigger experiences to get the satisfaction. Those moments pay off whether they're pleasure or pain because they all translate into literally days (/s) of appreciation from your followers plus a story to throw at the dinner table once in a while for another light dose of the drug. I think it's not really about lacking a purpose. Just perhaps that the purpose doesn't give them the same or enough satisfaction. Like any other "drug", you don't need to lack purpose to take it. After all being admired can be a purpose in itself. And this by no means applies only to social media. People buy expensive watches, or cars, or houses where the maintenance cost itself reminds them every time of the downsides but other people's admiration more than makes up for it. * the popular Everest base camp hikes, marathons, and others. Things most people don't necessarily enjoy yet a disproportionate number of them advertise them on social media.
lowwave 6y ago
>Certain social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok seem entirely designed to try to get their users to pursue building a following and attach their happiness to that. Some unfortunate people end up having all the joy of traveling and meeting new people robbed from them as a result. They know that "experiences" are better for happiness than possessions, but somehow the result is a bastardized version the actual experience. Yeah, not surprised. Talked to a neuroeconomic PHD friend once, and he said social media FB definitely putting in a lot money in R&D to make their product as additive as possible.
- hycaria 6y ago
  A claim that surely takes a neuroeconomic PhD to make !
- gonzo41 6y ago
  Remember in the 90's when everyone thought Bill Gates was terrible and now everyone views have tempered to view Bill as a really smart savvy businessman. I don't think the same fate is in store for Zuck. I believe history will judge him harshly. Mostly because he's damaging children more than anyone else.
- moneywoes 6y ago
  I can confirm this anecdotally. If I don't open Instagram for a day, I'll always get a push notification prompting me to see some of the stories my friends have posted. Like clockwork.
nicbou 6y ago
> Often for them, it is not achieving something amazing like a long bicycle trip, or summiting a mountain that brings them joy, but they are thinking about the resulting Instagram photos instead. This reflects my experience. When you have an audience, you have a certain pressure to perform. You subconsciously start framing everything in terms of potential likes. Having fun isn't enough, you have to prove it. Checking in can easily become more important than being there. I don't post much anymore. My profiles are all private. I do not turn moments into content. I just try to enjoy being there. It certainly improved my experience.
monadic2 6y ago
While there’s a grain of truth to this, you’re neglecting the simultaneous experience of self consciousness of this at the same time. I believe there’s a David Foster Wallace short story about this somewhere in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men.
tsycho 6y ago
Great points. Once you get used to the dopamine high of people "liking" your posts, it can get hard to relax and enjoy the actual experience. And switching off your phone/camera is not really what you want either, because you genuinely want to save the memories digitally. My solution was to basically completely stop posting publicly. I still take lots of photos on trips, because I enjoy photography too, and want to save the photos, but I am doing it for myself. There's no pressure of other people liking it since apart from my close family, no one will get to see them [1]. And as a result, my photographs have organically skewed towards capturing more faces and natural expressions, and not just landmarks. [1] From a tooling perspective, Google Photos private albums are awesome for my use case.
- piffey 6y ago
  Fellow photographer here. I still participate on Instagram, but rarely and only posting prints of my photographs now. I've found that the act of making a print, hanging it, or putting it into a "photo book" type form is way more satisfying of a medium to share with others. I find myself posting less and less on social media and enjoying my own work in that context more and more. It has also led to an improvement in my own work just from the amount of time I spend looking at photo books and thinking about how they're built, sequencing, ties between disparate photographs, etc. If you aren't printing your work now I highly recommend getting a good printer and making some large displays of your favorites for your home. Next time you have people over they'll be asking for prints.
  - grugagag 6y ago
    Can you recommend a good printer for large prints?
rsynnott 6y ago
I'm not sure how _new_ this is, though. Here's Monty Python on the subject of people inflicting their holiday photos on others, 50 years ago, for instance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAxkcPoLYcQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAxkcPoLYcQ At least these days people that way inclined can get all the fun of showing off their photos without actually holding anyone hostage on a sofa.
doublerabbit 6y ago
> I hope working from home in IT becomes the future standard. Big expensive cities are not worth it. I don't. I hate working from home. When my apartment is all I have to run away from life, adjusting it to be a working space just totally wrecks my personal psyche. Sure a laptop can be turned off but knowing the desk I use for general is now my work desk ruins the whole environment for me. At least from the Office I could come home and know it was personal. Everything work related is in the office and everything home is personal.

mrxd 6y ago

But what if the students assigned to the less desirable building really were less happy, but they had made other changes to their life to make up for it? Maybe they spent less time in the building, or improved the aesthetics of their room, or spent more time on hobbies or socializing. I suspect confirmation bias leads researchers to find proof of their initial hypothesis without ruling out other explanations.

gnicholas 6y ago

> A person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40 percent more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office. Living in downtown Palo Alto probably costs 100% more than living in Pleasanton, which is roughly a one hour commute. > While a bigger garden and spare bedroom soon cease to be novel, every day’s commute is a little bit different, meaning we can never get quite used to it. I wonder if this is one of the reasons big tech companies run buses — to make the commute less painful and blend into the background of life.

so33 6y ago
> Living in downtown Palo Alto probably costs 100% more than living in Pleasanton, which is roughly a one hour commute. As I understand, there’s heavy resistance to building any sort of density in Palo Alto. That will, of course, skew the cost of living. I believe that people are constantly priced out of the city as well (i.e. they wanted to stay but couldn’t). > I wonder if this is one of the reasons big tech companies run buses — to make the commute less painful and blend into the background of life. The American perception toward public transit is that it is unreliable, crowded, dirty and/or filled with poor people. Knowing that there will be a seat on a clean bus to take you home without much worry is a major sell and can convince people to ditch their cars (whether or not the equivalent public transit commute actually matches the above perception). When I was in a situation where I could take the “tech buses” regularly, they for sure helped make a long commute bearable.
TwoBit 6y ago
I worked in Menlo Park and commuted from Castro Valley. It was 40 minutes average each way, but I could afford a house and traffic wasn't nearly as bad by me as it was over there.
esoterica 6y ago
> Living in downtown Palo Alto probably costs 100% more than living in Pleasanton, which is roughly a one hour commute. If you spend 10% of your post tax income on rent, you only need a 10% increase in post-tax income to cancel out a 100% increase in rent.
bradlys 6y ago

hyko 6y ago

This article–and the many like it-assume that there is some universal truth that experiences will make you happier than mere things, when this is not true. I derive a great deal of happiness from nice things. I suspect I’m not alone, and that people like me are the reason that the whole human environment isn’t just a pile of half-arsed crap designed to facilitate only certain types of approved experiences. We notice the qualities of the things around us every single moment of the day, and they can bring us great joy (or the opposite). Materialism is clearly not in vogue (and I suspect there is a moral dimension to this), but for some people it will make them far happier than trying to chase experiences. I suspect there are many natural materialists out there struggling to conform to the new societal norm that only the ephemeral can lead to psychological salvation, and that all desire for material riches is a sin.

so33 6y ago
I don’t think that’s the thesis of the article. Rather, I think the article is saying that nice things alone don’t compensate for the opportunity costs and negative second-order effects you incur when obtaining _some_ nice things. To use the article’s example of living in a city versus a suburb: If you can get a house in a suburb and can commute 15 minutes or so and are within walking distance of the stuff you care about (including your friends/family) and don’t value any of the perks of living in a city environment (or heavily dislike the downsides), then go for it. But a big house in the suburbs _alone_ isn’t automatically going to make your life better, yet in my experience that’s a very dominant mode of thinking.
bschne 6y ago
I had the same thought when I first read this as I don't care much for some experiences that seem to be very highly regarded as if they were guaranteed to make your life richer (at least in my generation) and at the same time I appreciate some material things and the physical configuration of my surroundings to a degree that some would maybe consider overly materialistic. For some people, nice things can actually affect their life experience, while some "experiences" (as in activities) feel rather meaningless. I think the point is that you should aim to pursue whatever positively affects how you experience your life and not what looks good on the surface only, regardless of whether the entity under consideration is a material thing or an immaterial activity. What a lot of well-designed "nice things" achieve is not just surface level beauty, but actually working well and "feeling right".

jazzabeanie 6y ago

I tried to review the things in my life that this article might identify as a misplaced goal. Almost all of them are tied to experiences. Maintaining, harvesting, and admiring my garden is a soure of pleasure in my life. I can say the same thing about my bike, my computer, my phone, my guitar, etc. The example of sacrificing a short commute for a bigger house in the suburbs isn't so clear if people that you care about also live in the suburbs, or the house allows you experiences that you couldn't otherwise have - building things in a workshop, raising a large family, etc.

so33 6y ago
I’ve said this above but I don’t think this is an incompatible view with what the article says. But the predominant attitude is that everyone just ought to move to the suburbs eventually because it’s just “obviously” so much better, with the bigger living space and the lower density. We’re seeing this attitude pop up with COVID-19 once again. For me, I so heavily despise the experience of being in a car for even half an hour. So unless I find a neighborhood where everything is nearby or maybe I can bike everywhere (not so easy in the US!) none of these supposed quality-of-life improvements will outweigh the downside for me. (And yes, I have owned a car and used it for day-to-day stuff. I universally hated every single moment I sat in that car.)

ookblah 6y ago

having moved thru a number of diff apartments and diff cities i've found the balance for me, personally. the example in the article is very true, shortening commute and location of a home is probably #1 on my list of things that can increase your quality of life. not sure if this falls under appearances, but i've also found that spending a more on the "quality" of your home or items (not size) also makes a noticeable diff. having amenities that are important to you, say... a gym, doorman or package delivery stuff, "new" appliances did a lot more for me than i expected. only when i moved to a cheaper place at the expense of those things did those annoyances crop up. i think in general this has led me over the years to buy less stuff, but spend more on quality or aesthetics or what not, even how it makes you feel. most likely placebo, but you tend to take better care and pride of things you feel you've "invested" more in. i don't throw around my clothes or shoes. i dealt with a no frills corded hoover i had since college and hated vacuuming, then decided to get a cordless dyson cordless and now it's a "joy" to clean on the weekends or randomly lol. dumb example, but you get the point.

boffinism 6y ago

Surprised that having a big garden is dismissed as a superficial benefit. My intuition based on personal experience would be that the freedom to potter about in a garden every day (well, local climate permitting) would be a reliable source of regular positive experiences. But maybe that's more the difference between a garden and no garden, and the size of the garden matters less than I assume?

arslnjmn 6y ago
I have a relevant anecdote to share. My father [0] bought a pair for African grey parrots [1] last year. Both were around 6 months old at that time. They do require attention and looking after them has certainly brought happiness to him. [0] Runs a business which loses $200-$300 per month and works only 2-3 hours a day. So sort of retired. [1] I'm not encouraging keeping animals, endangered or not, as pets or in cages.
TwoBit 6y ago
I love my back yard, which I couldn't have living right in the city.
chadcmulligan 6y ago
The four dead plants on my balcony would disagree
KineticLensman 6y ago
> My intuition based on personal experience would be that the freedom to potter about in a garden every day (well, local climate permitting) would be a reliable source of regular positive experiences This is my exact experience. I've always enjoyed pottering about as a form of mindfulness. I made it part of my daily routine during Lockdown. The garden is large which increases the amount of pottering available. In the words of the Zen masters: "Before enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood. After enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood". Although for me 'fetch water' = 'pull weeds'.
ip26 6y ago
I would guess it's a significant benefit for certain people who have the dedication to actually keep a garden- but it seems pretty clear that most people don't successfully keep gardens long term.

leon1717 6y ago

You just gotta be able to differentiate happiness from fun.

alexmingoia 6y ago

”There is a direct linear downwards relationship between commute time and life satisfaction, but there’s no linear upwards correlation between house size and life satisfaction.” But is it really true that house size is the reason people commute? My family members commute in order to live in a neighborhood and city they desire, yet live in a small apartment. There are reasons to desire suburbs other than house size, like gardens, parks, safety, silence, etc. And people also commute from a city to the suburbs/office parks, as many tech workers in San Francisco do.

danielheath 6y ago
The USA has a... unique... approach to urban planning law, which ensures that most city centers are unpleasant places to live. If you were living in inner-city Melbourne (Australia) - you are close to gardens and parks, and it's one of the safest parts of town. The well-built buildings are quiet to be in (unfortunately there's now many more poorly-built ones which are noisy and too hot/cold).
- chadcmulligan 6y ago
  Same in Brisbane, inner city Brisbane has an abundance of parks, public transport and places to live, and getting more so. Melbourne's liveability is really influencing Brisbane imho, we're copying a lot of things that make Melbourne good. (and of course its even better because - no victorians ;-))
ip26 6y ago
Obviously there are exceptions, but exurbs are basically the manifestation of the described behavior. Suburb development pattern, but because it's in the middle of nowhere & far from everything, large houses are less expensive.

toto444 6y ago

"Living in the suburbs comes at a price: long commutes. Many people spend hours a day behind the wheel, getting to and from work." I wish there is a word to distinguish commute in a car and commute in public transport. The first one is clearly a waste of time. Depending on the person you ask, commuting by public transport can mean : reading a book, learning a new language, watching a series, reading the news, writing a book, ...

BattyMilk 6y ago
I disagree that commuting by car is a waste of time vs public transport (depending on the person). I'm someone who cherishes a little piece of solitude every day. I'd be much happier self sufficiently making my way to my place of work in the nice private bubble of a car (even if that means crawling at 3mph in traffic), listening to whatever music or podcast I enjoy, or just being able to think without many distractions, than having to jostle my way on public transport with no privacy or personal space. (disclaimer: I cycle to work, not drive, though I'd rather walk the 3hrs it would take me than the hour on tube and/or busses)
Oreb 6y ago
In every city I have lived, commuting by public transport means standing so packed that it’s barely possible to move my arms. Thankfully, I now live in walking distance from my office.
- mattmar96 6y ago
  Same here. Not a huge fan of reading while standing packed like sardines.
- TeeWEE 6y ago
  I commuted 1h daily in the netherlands. I was lucky always having a spot in the train, and I could sit in the train for 1h straight. I basically opened my laptop, programmed a little bit. Read a book. Or just listen to the radio. It was a lot of time. However it didnt feel completely wasted. However, now i'm biking in 25m to work. And its a joy. I'm missing it now we're working from home.

seosenior 6y ago

Both

lordnacho 6y ago

Maybe the biggest thing in this psychology-type stuff that's come out recently is how bad people are at knowing their own wants. It's truly stunning for someone who's used to economic thinking - the orthodoxy is that agents know what's good for them - and demands we think about how that affects our economic thinking.

mathew_samuel 6y ago

In the book, there is also insights on how our touchpoints with our city affect our perceptions of it, and how roads play an extreme role in it. For instance, how major roads go ‘through’ the city in the US vs how roads are built ‘around’ the city in Europe increases the touchpoints to the cityscape that makes it more engaging.

neilwilson 6y ago

"Living in the suburbs comes at a price: long commutes. Many people spend hours a day behind the wheel, getting to and from work. On top of that, the dispersed nature of suburbs means that everything from the grocery store to the gym requires more extended periods of time driving." Move the work and the services to the suburbs. For most of human history we worked where we lived. That changed only very recently, and the artificial bifurcation needs to be reversed - particularly now we have the technology to do it, without sacrificing any necessary economies of scale

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
PeterisP 6y ago
"Move the work and the services to the suburbs." - USA zoning laws generally prohibit that, and zoning is hard to change as local NIMBY activists can effectively block such attempts to change.

lsinger 6y ago

Another anecdote. Me, my wife, and our two kids recently moved. Previously we lived in a large house that looked “special” — old but in good shape. Lots of wood and 4m ceilings. That was a rented place. By chance we found a house smaller and not special at all — a mass-produced townhouse, basically — that we were able to afford buying. For a few us-specific reasons we really wanted to buy a house instead of rent it, so we went ahead. I was a bit scared that it would be a let-down. A downgrade. The house would be less special. I would feel less special. I was certain I would regret it, but it made sense for the family. The opposite happened. It’s a much nicer experience. The house feels more cozy and more modern. The kids have suddenly lost all problems sleeping in their rooms by themselves. They go play in their rooms. They never did that in the previous house. And being a townhouse, there’s a bunch of similar families around — suddenly the kids have friends. I work remotely so there’s not a huge difference work-wise. But I’m much happier and more relaxed knowing the kids are happier and more relaxed.

Insanity 6y ago
I suppose that's because, even though it's smaller, it's actually yours. Congratz ;-)
- lsinger 6y ago
  It will probably be in ~20 years. :) "Owning" it makes a difference in so far as that I can now be absolutely certain that no issue will be handled by the landlord because there isn't one. Definitely increases my perceived agency. The kids are 6 and 9. I think they just feel more comfortable in the more compact living space.

Milank 6y ago

There is no silver bullet. I am lucky to have both options at my disposal - I live in the city, commute to work (~45 minutes by tram, more if I walk, which I do). On the other hand, my parents live in the suburbs, backyard and stuff. Both options have advantages. During the lockdown, apartment was fine, but claustrophobic a little bit. Not many things to do. In the house, you don't even notice it. Especially now, during the summer, garden, fruits, vegetables, swimming pool. On the other hand, living in the city offers more options, like socialising, finding things to do, people with similar interests, training, learning classes for whatever, etc. Both options offer experiences. They talk about an experience of commuting ruining everything. But what about an experience of enjoying personal swimming pool? Eating stuff from your own garden? Kids running around happy, having a tree house versus being limited to the apartment? As I said at the beginning - there's no silver bullet. It's about finding out what you like, what works for you, and then act accordingly (if possible).

raiflip 6y ago
Thank you for being fair-minded on city vs suburban living. Too bad the top post is the usual city-hate.
autokad 6y ago
I dont like how they didnt back up their claim with data. they never showed that people in the suburbs were actually more unhappy than people in the cities. I only saw anecdotes on commutes. And hey, I feel them. I myself only choose places that I can walk to work, its what I prefer. some sources say that people in cities are less happy than those in smaller cities or rural areas. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/17/people-who-live-in-small-towns-and-rural-areas-are-happier-than-everyone-else-researchers-say/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/17/peopl... Others say different: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-29/u-s-millennials-find-happiness-in-cities-not-small-towns https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-29/u-s-mille... and then further bloomberg articles say the opposite. This is why I was particularly disappointed with their last point. Or is what it is saying is that once you take away the commute, cities loose handily in happiness?

zalkota 6y ago

You should create and buy things that serve and enable the experiences you desire. An example would be a beautiful pool where your family and friends can gather.

noetokyo 6y ago

I mean this is good but it assumes that all people are treated the same way in experiences.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

_jal 6y ago

"[...] for a single person, exchanging a long commute for a short walk to work has the same effect on happiness as finding a new love." I can directly relate to this. I went from spending ~2.5 hours/day on the train to a 15 minute walk about five years ago. It is hard to overstate how much it changed my life for the better.

cruano 6y ago
So falling in love with someone that lives far away just evens out

gmaster1440 6y ago

With the risk of coming across as vapid, I believe that a more profound and possibly undermining insight here is that "appearance" is itself an implicit experience of it, meaning that you can't really escape experience or consider something as truly decoupled from experiencing it. With that, "Appearances vs. Experiences" becomes more of a false dichotomy, an argument that privileges certain experiences over others, which is fine, but possibly less effective.

arrosenberg 6y ago
You definitely can decouple it. Go to any major National Park in the US or Canada and you will see people who get out of a luxury bus or car, snap 3 pictures and get back in to go to the next scene. To some extent experience is in the eye of the beholder, but I feel pretty good about judging those people as not really experiencing what they came to see.
- gmaster1440 6y ago
  Fair enough, in your example the tourists who simply take a photo are definitely not getting the same kind of experience as those who choose to go on hikes. I do feel that fits nicely into my argument, which is that we can compare photo opportunity and hiking as two different kinds of experiences, instead of treating one as an appearance vs another as an actual experience. In the end, it's at least possible that the tourists that only took a photo have derived as much personal pleasure and satisfaction as those who invested more time into activities such as hiking, depending on their personalities, interests, and intentions.

supernova87a 6y ago

Well, as I've learned in my own life, you can be told that so many different things have no real impact on your satisfaction after you finally achieve them. But such is the human condition, that you still need to experience for yourself before you learn (generally). If only there were a way to pass the real feeling / understanding to someone else so that we wouldn't all have to bang our heads against the wall and find out for ourselves...