Last Poster #6

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

It is hard for me to believe China is that high but have always heard the Netherlands ranked very high.

I'm very interested in the China uptick as well. Seems odd to me, but they always do have consistently high happiness, and I haven't been there yet to see for myself beyond what our media says about them. And the Netherlands one in this particular study is actually very important, as this is the first time Ipsos is including them. The other groups that do surveys like this that include Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, etc. (and most happiness studies in general) have a huge flaw IMO-they view how socialist a country is. EDIT TO CLARIFY: socialist, not communist. As in follows socialist ideals; universal healthcare, low wage inequality, social support programs, etc. In other words, they'll look at healthcare/life expectancy, ecological impact, and wage equality/inequality. And say that whoever has the best of those three, must be the happiest country. This may have changed recently, since I stopped looking at other ones when I saw two that didn't even include asking people if they're happy (and very rarely do the ones that I've looked at include things like alcoholism/substance use rates, rates of seeing a therapist, reported depression, suicide rates, or other things that I would personally be looking at if I were to make a list such as this). Like I said though, this may have changed in the past few years. So having the Netherlands score high in one with the simple question of whether or not they consider themselves happy/very happy does a lot more to validate the belief that the Netherlands are high in happiness (again though, not perfect and there's a lot more I would be including in this if I was involved in the decision making).



Part of the issue with interpreting the results to figure out why a country is happening though, at least with this study, (if you couldn't get from my other post) is that the phrasing of the main question is weird. It's "X Does or could give me greatest happiness, does or could give me some happiness, doesn't or couldn't make me happy or happier, does not apply to me". That means basically that X, if good, would have _ chance of giving me happiness. But with the Does part of it, I'm guessing that people are reading it as "does give me (current) happiness", which would explain some odd results I'm finding, and also give the results (for each source of happiness, not the country's happiness level) as a whole a bit less meaning.

 

[Steve]

Not as much movement as I thought; the bottom in happiness generally stayed there and same with the top. But Peru took a nosedive, the US dropped by quite a bit as well, while Chinese people apparently are happier in general than they were a year ago. For china; given that the pandemic started there, but was considered contained that resulted in more happiness around health, but looking at the data that doesn't seem to be the case. For the US; each source of what's considered important for their happiness dropped, but the biggest drops were around finances and free time; which would make sense if people misread the sentence as "making me happy" rather than "if I had this I would be happy". Cause I can't wrap my head around the idea that people cared less about financial stability when the economy was in the midst of COVID shambles, then they did a year before.

man, you dug into that. I did notice that the us dropped by like 9 points. Glad you thought it was interesting.

For what it’s worth, i took it as more statements about priorities, than about what literally made people happy. Ultimately, “happiness” is a bit abstract. So, maybe the point is that it’s not the internet or technology that makes people happy or unhappy. But indie emphasis on those things can create a lack of balance that makes one less happy.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I'm very interested in the China uptick as well. Seems odd to me, but they always do have consistently high happiness, and I haven't been there yet to see for myself beyond what our media says about them. And the Netherlands one in this particular study is actually very important, as this is the first time Ipsos is including them. The other groups that do surveys like this that include Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, etc. (and most happiness studies in general) have a huge flaw IMO-they view how socialist a country is. In other words, they'll look at healthcare/life expectancy, ecological impact, and wage equality/inequality. And say that whoever has the best of those three, must be the happiest country. This may have changed recently, since I stopped looking at other ones when I saw two that didn't even include asking people if they're happy (and very rarely do the ones that I've looked at include things like alcoholism/substance use rates, rates of seeing a therapist, reported depression, suicide rates, or other things that I would personally be looking at if I were to make a list such as this). Like I said though, this may have changed in the past few years. So having the Netherlands score high in one with the simple question of whether or not they consider themselves happy/very happy does a lot more to validate the belief that the Netherlands are high in happiness (again though, not perfect and there's a lot more I would be including in this if I was involved in the decision making).



Part of the issue with interpreting the results to figure out why a country is happening though, at least with this study, (if you couldn't get from my other post) is that the phrasing of the main question is weird. It's "X Does or could give me greatest happiness, does or could give me some happiness, doesn't or couldn't make me happy or happier, does not apply to me". That means basically that X, if good, would have _ chance of giving me happiness. But with the Does part of it, I'm guessing that people are reading it as "does give me (current) happiness", which would explain some odd results I'm finding, and also give the results (for each source of happiness, not the country's happiness level) as a whole a bit less meaning.

@dvcochran Here's two example of what I'm talking about above. Full disclosure first: I'm very briefly skimming these just to check, so I may very well be misinterpreting stuff. But this first group cites basically all of Scandinavia as the highest happiness countries.

But then you look at the key to see what each of those bars means, and you see

Now I'm not going to go through the whole study to make sure I'm understanding it right at this point in time (here it is if anyone else wants to), and they could be doing a separate happiness survey, and then using those bars as an explanation/hypothesis for the happiness. But I'm pretty sure they're looking at GDP per capita, social support, and the rest, and then saying "whoever has the highest levels of these (and inverted for the perceptions of corruption, and dystopia appears to be 'compared to a make-believe country with the lowest level in each of the other six areas, how do they fair'), must be the happiest country". Which I get the logic of, but to me that's not accurate. Again though, I might be missing something in their methodology that turns my point on its head; I don't feel like reading through a 200 page report right now.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

man, you dug into that. I did notice that the us dropped by like 9 points. Glad you thought it was interesting.

For what it’s worth, i took it as more statements about priorities, than about what literally made people happy. Ultimately, “happiness” is a bit abstract. So, maybe the point is that it’s not the internet or technology that makes people happy or unhappy. But indie emphasis on those things can create a lack of balance that makes one less happy.

I dig into these whenever I see that they're up. Side effect of being a mental health therapist until July I suppose.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

man, you dug into that. I did notice that the us dropped by like 9 points. Glad you thought it was interesting.

For what it’s worth, i took it as more statements about priorities, than about what literally made people happy. Ultimately, “happiness” is a bit abstract. So, maybe the point is that it’s not the internet or technology that makes people happy or unhappy. But indie emphasis on those things can create a lack of balance that makes one less happy.

And yeah, it could be about priorities. But the idea of those questions is to figure out what, if good, would make them most happy. Or what they think would. Typically with stuff like that you find what people are lacking...as a general rule, poor people think if they had economic stability they'd be happy; sick people feel if they had better health they'd be happy; spiritual people are the exception-they think if they were even more spiritual they'd be happier. And I think a good point from this one is people recognize the internet and social media won't make them happier in most countries.

The issue, which I said above (I think..I wrote a lot in the last half hour) is the phrasing makes people think of what makes them happy currently. But it's still a good point to go off of.

 

[Steve]

I dig into these whenever I see that they're up. Side effect of being a mental health therapist until July I suppose.

Cool. I appreciate the insight. I’ve not looked too deeply into these sorts of studies, but I do the same kind of thing when studies regarding leadership traits, employee engagement/satisfaction surveys and such come out. I think that employees tend to hit the same buckets when the talk about what makes them happy at a job, and in a lot of cases, who you work for matters as much or more than where you work. People who work for great managers can be very happy on the job, even if the job itself is problematic.

 

[dvcochran]

Not as much movement as I thought; the bottom in happiness generally stayed there and same with the top. But Peru took a nosedive, the US dropped by quite a bit as well, while Chinese people apparently are happier in general than they were a year ago. For china; given that the pandemic started there, but was considered contained that resulted in more happiness around health, but looking at the data that doesn't seem to be the case. For the US; each source of what's considered important for their happiness dropped, but the biggest drops were around finances and free time; which would make sense if people misread the sentence as "making me happy" rather than "if I had this I would be happy". Cause I can't wrap my head around the idea that people cared less about financial stability when the economy was in the midst of COVID shambles, then they did a year before.

Do you know the source(s) of the background data?

 

[dvcochran]

I'm very interested in the China uptick as well. Seems odd to me, but they always do have consistently high happiness, and I haven't been there yet to see for myself beyond what our media says about them. And the Netherlands one in this particular study is actually very important, as this is the first time Ipsos is including them. The other groups that do surveys like this that include Norway, Netherlands, Denmark, etc. (and most happiness studies in general) have a huge flaw IMO-they view how socialist a country is. EDIT TO CLARIFY: socialist, not communist. As in follows socialist ideals; universal healthcare, low wage inequality, social support programs, etc. In other words, they'll look at healthcare/life expectancy, ecological impact, and wage equality/inequality. And say that whoever has the best of those three, must be the happiest country. This may have changed recently, since I stopped looking at other ones when I saw two that didn't even include asking people if they're happy (and very rarely do the ones that I've looked at include things like alcoholism/substance use rates, rates of seeing a therapist, reported depression, suicide rates, or other things that I would personally be looking at if I were to make a list such as this). Like I said though, this may have changed in the past few years. So having the Netherlands score high in one with the simple question of whether or not they consider themselves happy/very happy does a lot more to validate the belief that the Netherlands are high in happiness (again though, not perfect and there's a lot more I would be including in this if I was involved in the decision making).



Part of the issue with interpreting the results to figure out why a country is happening though, at least with this study, (if you couldn't get from my other post) is that the phrasing of the main question is weird. It's "X Does or could give me greatest happiness, does or could give me some happiness, doesn't or couldn't make me happy or happier, does not apply to me". That means basically that X, if good, would have _ chance of giving me happiness. But with the Does part of it, I'm guessing that people are reading it as "does give me (current) happiness", which would explain some odd results I'm finding, and also give the results (for each source of happiness, not the country's happiness level) as a whole a bit less meaning.

I wonder if it is legalese; does and could or shall and may have very different legal meanings.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Do you know the source(s) of the background data?

What sort of background data sources are you looking for? It's mostly the same people that were asked each question, and if you look in the study they will state what question specifically was asked. Any additional background information or procedural information is at the end of the report. I think I linked the page with the zip file, but I may have forgotten, or it may have been lost-here you go. The state of happiness in a COVID world

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

I wonder if it is legalese; does and could or shall and may have very different legal meanings.

It most likely is, but when you are asking the average individual questions for any sort of survey, legalese doesn't help make your question clear. And if it's confusing in English, there's a good chance it's confusing in the other languages as well.

 

[Steve]

What sort of background data sources are you looking for? It's mostly the same people that were asked each question, and if you look in the study they will state what question specifically was asked. Any additional background information or procedural information is at the end of the report. I think I linked the page with the zip file, but I may have forgotten, or it may have been lost-here you go. The state of happiness in a COVID world

You talking to me? I'm good.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

You talking to me? I'm good.

That was to dv

 

[Steve]

That was to dv

Ah. Got it.

 

[granfire]

Hmm, Happiness.
Right now I don't know.
Coming off the power outage, having spent several days in a blacked out room (with the AC under the curtains blowing, and Ding and Dong the doorbells on high alert all the time, the blackout curtain was drawn for privacy). and the personal scheduling needing to be adjusted.

And we are having fall weather. Which means it's not cold enough to wear warm clothes, not warm enough to were thin stuff....
I think I just take a shower and figure it out.
The coffee doesn't taste right either, although I do like the 'New Orleans Blend' form community.

 

[granfire]

gonna win this one!

 

[Steve]

Hmm, Happiness.
Right now I don't know.
Coming off the power outage, having spent several days in a blacked out room (with the AC under the curtains blowing, and Ding and Dong the doorbells on high alert all the time, the blackout curtain was drawn for privacy). and the personal scheduling needing to be adjusted.

And we are having fall weather. Which means it's not cold enough to wear warm clothes, not warm enough to were thin stuff....
I think I just take a shower and figure it out.
The coffee doesn't taste right either, although I do like the 'New Orleans Blend' form community.

Sounds like you're going through a lot... glad your power is back on, and that you have good coffee.

 

[granfire]

well, it's coffee.
I am searching.
I liked the Green Mountain and Newmann's Own for the Keurig, but producing all that trash (and for the price per cup I better have it prepared by somebody!) I am foregoing the convenience of having a lot of coffee to choose from at one moment.
I need to get more tea though, I found I was out of green tea.

 

[donald1]

I'm driving home the other day, and what do I see? The goofballs across the street of my house got their Christmas lights shining bright.

Are they gonna eat Thanksgiving under a tree? Are they going to put cranbury sauce in a stocking?

Speaking of Christmas, Walmart is playing Christmas music. Are we gonna play valentine's day music in December?

Alright then.

Oh and, hi people on martial talk...

 

[granfire]

you

I'm driving home the other day, and what do I see? The goofballs across the street of my house got their Christmas lights shining bright.

Are they gonna eat Thanksgiving under a tree? Are they going to put cranbury sauce in a stocking?

Speaking of Christmas, Walmart is playing Christmas music. Are we gonna play valentine's day music in December?

Alright then.

Oh and, hi people on martial talk...

you are officially old, dude!

 

[granfire]

went to the store today, looking for three things.
Came home with one of the items I was looking for.
And that was the wine.
Forgot the tea.
But I got rum and honey, any ole tea will do!