Well after going through the links I am even more confused on how to achieve happiness, just kidding. Basically two of the links were measuring well-being based on social networks and what people posted. One focused only on twitter to measure how much people tweeted about it. And the university of Pennsylvania looked at various things including Facebook and twitter. Then there was Happify and Happier, both pages suggested they could help a person feel “happier”. Honestly I didn’t know such pages even existed. The measuring pages weren’t really surprising though, I feel like now a days people think they can tell a lot from what people post on their social media. Which I don’t think is true at all, some people don’t post their whole life on Facebook you don’t know when there happy or when there sad, so how can we really use social media to get results. Also I think that kind of brings up privacy issues. If I know that what I’m posting is going to be looked at as a measure, I’m not going to post it, that just weird, in my personal opinion. I think there was actually a whole thing on the news about how Facebook was monitoring people’s statuses for some study. Kind of makes you think twice about what you post. Well at least that’s what I think.
Happify is a site that offers different plans on how to become happier and more positive after answering a few questions. After signing up because I wanted to really get a feel for it I was offered to start with a “Conquer your negative thoughts” track plan. Well that doesn’t sound too right; I don’t have any negative thoughts. This is where I find an issue with this cite. I have a problem with these kinds of things because they give you a questionnaire of 10 or so questions and then tell you how you can fix yourself. Well that doesn’t seem too legit. How are you going to know about a person from a couple of questions? This track is free but if I wanted to try something like “Get out of rut & live life to the fullest” that would be a premium and I would have to pay about $4.74 a month. Hmmm buying happiness? I don’t know, this looked a bit suspicious to me. But if I take the two year discount I would only pay $3.16 a month, all this to be able to use other tracks that are too good to be free. On happier there are also courses offered. Free forever? But what about that premium? There it is again. If I wanted to take the course happier makeover I would have to pay $4.99. Now I’m not complaining about the prices. I’m just saying that you shouldn’t false advertise. I feel as though the site is making the argument that they can help me feel happier if I take these course or pay. Who’s to assure me that those 4 or 5 dollars spent on the course will actually benefit me? Although I can purchase one right now, I can’t help but wonder that after someone takes a premium course, other premium course are probably suggested to take also. So is it really just all about business and advertising? I don’t know, What do you think ?