Screens between emotions.

In modern days technology is being used for everything, even to promote happiness. Two of the websites explain that we explored were “happier” and “happify”. These websites explain ways to be happy and they give activities online that will supposedly boost your level of positivity. They make you think about the good things in your life and be grateful for them. Also, “hedonometer” is another website where a timeline of twitter shows what trends have been the happiest for people over the past years. Moreover, another website that we looked into was “ the world-well being project” which is about trying to look for ways of measuring psychological and health well-being through the usage of language in social media.

It is very creative and advanced what these types of websites are being used for. Which is providing proper with different types of websites are being used for. Which is providing people with different types of activities that may or may not improve their emotional well-being. However, I personally believe that technology is not enough for a person to express their feelings. A person needs to talk out their emotions with someone else. Or do something that involves physical and mental effort. These positive efforts will eventually provide the individuals with sufficient skills to deal with their negative emotions.

People are social animals. They need to interact with each other in order to survive in this life. Technology provides them with convenient communication, sure. Although, it does not provide individuals with effective communication. It is very different to have a conversation face to face, compared to having a conversation through a screen. A person can miss on interpreting in a right way the language of another individual. For example, having some eye contact would be more meaningful or just a small pat on the shoulder and so on. Also, I think some of these websites might be too positive up to the point where it seems a little unrealistic to be so positive when many factors in life are making people depressed. The only way that technology might be beneficial in my opinion is by convenience of finding data correlating to improvement of the wellbeing. It is much faster and more accessible for researchers of topics.

Can Happiness Be Computed?

I get it, but do I want it? I’m from an age of control. Where survival was purely “hands-on”. Today we have cyber pursuits of happiness. Never thought I’d live to see the day. However, my life’s pursuit is all about balance. Therefore I remain open to new things, new dynamics.

Everything in life is a choice. In this age of technology, we’re supposed to take absolute comfort in the existence of attaining happiness through the cyber world. The “Happier” site states that they’re helping you appreciate life. They’re showing different ways to just appreciate the little things. They’re goal, apparently is to enlighten others to appreciate the little things. I mean after all isn’t that what life is? A collective of “little things”? I don’t believe you need the cyber world for that.

For a fact, ones mindset of today stems from yesterday. It’s a continuous string of experiences of the past and present that constitutes tomorrow. I believe that most of these sites are attempting to reveal to the world how to channel those experiences, good and bad, and transform us into free thinking, stress free accomplishers.

Life is not a game! At the same time we mustn’t take life so seriously. The “Happify” website attempts to scientifically gauge a person’s happiness with games. These games are apparently designed to stimulate ones motivations towards their goals, thereby bringing us back in the “now” of our objectives and with these new perspectives, we continue to reinvent ourselves.

Sounds great! However this entire Cyber Happiness campaign can be an extreme also. This, as with everything, and I emphasize everything, requires balance. The term “get a life” comes to mind when I imagine a person on the computer or mobile device all day every day, looking for happiness in cyberspace exclusively.

It’s like an innate fear of tangible engagement. Tangible engagement is the bottom line isn’t it? All that is to be attained is to be ultimately tangible.

The Hedonometer depicts the variations in good feelings and bad feelings and the frequency of it all, in correlation to good and bad things taking place where these high and low feelings result from. In 2014, events good and bad have occurred and public perception via twitter was gauged and translated into public moods and the varying frequency of them. That is a great science as far as I’m concerned. It’s a great way to gauge public perception or opinions about incidents occurring or recurring. Now this includes holidays. For instance, according to the hedonometer, Christmas day is the highpoint of happiness in 2014. This is anticipated obviously and I can see how that would be, however the same or similar goes for most of the holidays this year. Then there are the deaths of various celebrities this year, which obviously resulted in varying low points on twitter opinions and moods.

It is very easy to get caught up in computed happiness. We mustn’t get caught up in total reliance on any one thing. I said it before and I’ll say it again and again and yet again. It is ALL about balance. It’s that tree of infinite knowledge where the branches and leaves are varying levels and directions of knowledge. Computer generated scales of happiness is really just one angle. We have to be out there, engaging, really FINDING our happy.

 

 

 

 

Tracking Happiness

The majority of people use technology at least once a day, making it easy to try to track happiness using technology. At first I didn’t think that happiness would be something that could be measured. How can it be measured if it’s a personal emotion it depends on how the person is feeling which is usually not the same all the time. All these websites talk about how they want to measure happiness by tracking what they do in their daily life. Different people have different ideas and approaches in how to measure a person’s well-being which will eventually lead to happiness.

In the first two websites they used an app named The H(app)athon App which is used to track a person’s values. They believe that the actions that are taken affect an individual’s happiness. When the app is downloaded they ask you to take a survey. The survey that is taken matches the individual with actives that they could do that will help boost up their happiness. The app also helps to see where an individual’s life is out of balance and then try to balance it out for it could benefit the well-being. In my opinion I think that that this app will help a couple of people but not everyone. It will help some people because some people may actually take it serious and follow what the app says to do which will make them feel like they are improving their well-being. It may not help others because not everyone will be consistent or truthful with the app. Also, not everyone is the same, what makes one person happy may not me the same for the other, it is not one size fits all.

The next two websites mention on how Santa Monica is trying to measure well-being and making it a city that is truly connected to its people. They believe that by reflecting how the community is back to the community, the community will realize and make it easier to improve its well-being. The Wellbeing project is researching all around the world to understand the strengths and challenges people face in their lives. Although, Santa Monica is beautiful, has nice weather, and feels like paradise, it is number two of the top ten most stressed out cities in America. It is in the top two because there is a lot of traffic and living there is too expensive. I think that by people taking action and by trying to improve wellbeing there is going to be a positive change. The more people work together on this project the more of an outcome there will be because that will mean that a lot of people are willing to work to improve their happiness. If everyone works together in Santa Monica and achieves their project on well-being it will have a great outcome in the whole world.

The last website talks about how happiness is influenced depending the geographical location that the person is currently in. For instance, the saddest part in New York City is Maspeth Park, Brooklyn because of its pollution and lack on sanitation. The happiest place in New York City is Times Square because it is a place where tourist go filled with excitement and joy feeling they have arrived to New York. This was all measured by looking at the tweets people have posted and analyzing their location at the moment. In my opinion that was a very smart way to track happiness. People usually tweet what they feel with no pressure or thought that they are being evaluated on how happy they are. Therefore, I feel like they will be much more truthful with their emotions. It is also a very smart way to track happiness because now people tweet more than ever. Technology has become a daily routine to mostly everyone. As technology continues to improve and advance there will be more accurate measurement on individual’s happiness and on what makes an individual truly happy.

In the app store: Happiness

In the tech world today, we can basically do anything. We have social networks. Just to name two we have Facebook and Twitter. We have apps on our phone. In fact more than one million of apps are being develop a day. This is why there isn’t no surprise, when happiness is also a purpose for an app. We have apps for everything now, for shopping, games, workouts, etc. So happiness got to be part of such a huge library of apps. However, are people just making money of it or just want society to be happy(?)

The app “Happier” is what the developers called a “course”. To me it’s a marketing skill. Since I happen to read how the course works, it’s seem kind of like youtube. It is just basically watching videos each day. The video often contains a lesson. However, to actually be in the “Course, one’s must pay $4.99. It’s a costly app, with such normal content to me. The app giving a free trail is just to lure us into to paying for it.

To actually gain more information, I downloaded the app to see what the fuss is all about. I just don’t see, but want to see how it actually works or how they claimed it works. After signing up, it tells me to pick an area of focus. I can see how people could actually like that because they want to focus on their own problems rather then focusing on a broader subject. I picked “mind” as my focus to see what happens.  The it gave me a list of courses. There are courses for meditation, stress, sleep, yoga, etc. It actually provides free courses. I picked the sleep Deep & Dream sweet course. It provides a seven day relaxing bedtime mediation to help my sleep. Each course has a host, and my course host gave me my intro lesson. After a few glimpse I went to my first lesson. i was led to watching my first video What a waste of my three minutes. It was boring to me making kind of unhappy. How ironic that I feel this way.  However the video did taught me something. If I want a great sleep, everyday before I sleep I should have a ritual. It could be anything. It could be drinking a cup of milk or water or turn off all electronics, etc. In another app called “Happify” it’s basically the same concept of “Happier”, but it does includes actitives and games that are “science-based happiness”. See what they did(?) To me it’s another marketing technique.

In the Hedonometer, it shows a graph of twitter in it’s happiness times. It has concluded the many tweeted happily during the holidays while the someone death decreased the happier tweets. Social network is like a primarily source track happiness even daily.

In conclusion, when it comes to tech, many people use the word happiness lure people into taking some cash out of their pockets. It’s just many want to be happy, stress-free, etc. People will actually willing to pay for this emotion. It also be tracked from social networks from all parts of the world. Happiness in some ways became the purpose of everything today.

There’s an app for that

Thought out the last few year technology has evolved to an everyday necessity. With apps, social media and the internet in general life it at your finger tips. Anything you can possibly imagine or want is just a few clicks away. You can basically get anything from a pizza to a life coach over a screen. With technology at its peek it’s only logical that happiness is also a click away.

Websites like happier or happify use a social media approach to bring happiness to its users. They both offer activities  like games, life tips and articles. Happier also promotes it’s scientific approach to the methods they teach and constantly mentions how it’s forever free but with a $10 subscription a few added features are avaliable. Happify on the other hand ptomotes that their methods are used to train you brain to build skills for lasting happiness. Both websites use a step by step approach to tech their users well being and happiness.

While I was exploring the website for the world well-being project it found it interesting how they were able to collect such data that we tend to ignor. Social networks use trends/hashtags to categorize specific topics. But for the most part we aren’t aware of how positive or negative things we say on line are kept forever. Being able to see a cluster of word like that is really eye opening. Especially the difference between genders the topics are actually kind of funny to see.

 

 

 

Happiness and Technology

Before looking at these three websites based on happiness I’ve never realized before the role that technology plays in ones happiness. I do believe technology brings happiness to people, depending on how your using it. If your texting a friend, going on social media, taking pictures, using an app or playing a game, that can definitely increase ones happiness. After looking at these sites I honestly thinks it’s a good idea to relate happiness to technology. People are very busy and to be able to go on their phone, which are permanently attached to peoples hand anyway, and bring some happiness their way.

The first link was to a website called Happier. This website offers courses that offer daily lessons that help one learn tips and tricks that are scientifically proven to help focus on what makes someone happier. It offers many things such as ridiculously affordable the courses are, and even some are free. Theres even a on-the-go option where each episode can be completed in under 15 minutes on the web or on a phone. This website basically gives the steps on how to become a better you and courses or episodes can be taken to get you there.

The next link was to a website called Happify. This website is different in the way that everything is based on science. They offer activities and games that help you to train the brain and build skills for lasting happiness. This website helps one reach their goals by recommending daily activities so we can be more excited about our future. Just like the previous website it allows to be used on the phone or a computer. There’s even evidence of how happiness is increased after joining happify.

Finally the last link showed the average happiness for twitter. It shows when happiness was at it’s highest on holidays. This was very interesting to look at, Christmas Day is the highest in happiness, not surprising but interesting to know. All these websites of course have in common, HAPPINESS. I had no idea there were these websites to help people increase their happiness. If it works for someone and has a positive impact then great, go for it. I definitely do think it’s interesting and should be tried. The websites draws me in, it made me want to join, all the pictures and personal stories was one of the main reasons of wanting to join. If it can work for someone else, it can work for me too was a thought as going through the website. Everyone wants happiness so I’m sure others are willing to try.

Online sources for happiness do they really work ?

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 ?

Is happiness computer friendly?

Throughout these different websites they share a little insight on how they believe people can benefit from their websites and ultimately end up happy. But can an app really contribute to your happiness? In my opinion I don’t see how complete strangers over a website can really make you happy. Of course there are little things such as talking to others and sharing, but true happiness comes from within. Another thing brought into play was measuring happiness. This time it wasn’t through surveys, it was through twitter. They use people’s tweets to determine whether they are happy or sad by the words that they use. This could either be a really good idea or just really ridiculous. It could be a good idea because it’s somewhere that some people do vent and say what they want how they want but it’s also ridiculous because it’s just a social network. People can lie about it and no one would know. Someone can post a heart wrenching tweet one day and be blissful the next, posts on social networks don’t determine current emotional states, they are just posts.

Although technology is undoubtedly upgraded and given to people for entertainment and happiness, does it really always do that for us? Every other month there’s a new phone that can do more, take better pictures and is faster than the last. It all seems so flashy and everyone of course wants it but would that make you happy? It seems like these phone companies believe so. As shown in the charts people are happier around the time of holidays and festivities, maybe it’s because they are times of togetherness and sharing. That is more beneficial towards happiness than a cellphone or laptop.

On one of the sites they give various ideas on how you can bring about your happiness. Like eating healthier, doing yoga, being active, getting a make over, meditating, changing your style, better sleeping habits and better “happy” habits. Although I don’t completely agree with finding happiness through a website, these are good ideas that you can try out on your own and see how they make you feel. I believe this because these are all things that would help someone build themselves up again. They can practice these different methods and if it works they can continue and it doesn’t cost a monthly fee. It makes more sense to do this then to register with some random site who promises happiness. They are also things that can boost your health and that means taking care of your basic needs which actually is proven to contribute to happiness.

Technology could help someone be happy but it could also hinder the process. When you think about it, people are so hooked to electronic devices that they sometimes don’t notice the world around them. Not saying that it’s unexpected, technology is extremely convenient but it could also hold people back from doing things that could possibly help them get happy. Such as missing a hiking trip to be chatting online or skipping a game night to be on webcam. Technology is helpful and can contribute to happiness but it shouldn’t be a major factor in it.

Technology can be decieving

Technology, social networks, social media, apps plays a huge role in peoples lives. It can make some people happy or it can ruin peoples life because it’s a way for you to contact with friends,family and see what they’re doing, then it can ruin you by what you post or what you put on social networks because it can be taken out of content . Also it can keep you posted on certain things such as if you’re into sports, clothes, fashion , music, or artist you like thats why social media is there and apps such as ESPN app, NFL, NBA to keep you updated on what is going on.

Technology is way more advanced in society today because back then in the 1900s and before we couldn’t text one another or when we are typing a paper we couldn’t go back and fix corrections, back then if you messed up on a paper you would have to do it all over again. Back then they didn’t have voice mail, speed dial, texting or anything we can do now with technology now it is more advanced and quicker for people to communicate with each other which make us happier because if we need to contact someone and can’t get through to them with a call or texting, then we can email them or leave a voicemail for them to hear it or see it.

Social media can play both parts it can make some people happy and it can make some people unhappy. For example with couples social media can make a girl or a guy feel a way about something they saw either on face book, Instagram or twitter and it can either destroy their relationship or make it better if both people are willing to compromise and talk it out rather than letting what they saw on social media affect how they feel . On the other hand social media can be great because others can see what you allow them to see by what you post on your account and it can be great because some people get famous by posting their music, their art, their style and it only takes the right person to see the potential for someone and it can be great such as Justin Bieber, he got famous off youtube it took the right person to see his music and now he is a millionaire or just a 20 year old kid with a lot of money. Therefore social media can play both parts I think.

Apps can also playa role in happiness because I for example have apps on my phone that I need to keep me posted such as my work app it keeps me posted with my work hours and what i should get paid when I do get paid , and my urban outfitters app although I work there I keep up with it because I can keep customers connected with the deals we have in case they don’t know and it makes me happy when I come to work and my manager or associates tell me customers asked for me, it makes me feel good about myself because that means I am doing my job.

Lastly technology, social media, social network , and apps can make people happy for certain reasons because it can get you into a lot of situations or it can make you into something but for some people it can control them because some people can’t live without checking their Instagram , Facebook , or twitter for a day because they’re addicted to it, but for some it’s something not that important to them.

websites on happy : review

Of course all the websites are about feeling happy and what can you do to get happy in your life . I really liked what the website ” hedonometer ”  provides, a graph that charts out the different holidays of the year and how many positive tweets were done during the holiday . I kinda had a hunch of which holiday would have the most , Christmas . I mean how can Christmas not win .As soon as Christmas is getting near every one and everything gets merry . But enough of that the other websites also had different information’s and tools you can use to help you get a better perspective which I really liked especially the research and the science behind happiness . What I found fun was theres actually a survey you take on happify that helps personalize your own happy . I thought it was weird at first but I really think its a good idea because I guess it can help give you a sort of layout on the things that make you happy and even help discover what you want to accomplish in life that would make you happy .