This is the text version of our launch at the PicNic Festival in Amsterdam.
We also put the slides online, as well as a video from the presentation.
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In the next couple of minutes I would like to share with you
two observations and one announcement.
The first observation has to do with happiness.
Because: what is happiness?
Albert Schweitzer thought he had a clear definition, when he said that happiness is nothing more but good health and bad memory.
And as compelling as that may sound, it turns out Mr. Schweitzer knew a lot about medicine and about winning Nobel prizes, but he didn’t know an awful lot about happiness research.
Because in the last fifty years, research has shown that the biggest
influence for your personal happiness is NOT being in good health
Neither is winning the lottery.
It’s not about having power, or living in a good neighbourhood,
and it’s not about getting your nose pierced.
What makes the difference in peoples lifes, is the social factor.
Do you easily make contact, are you out going?
Do you have friends who you can call?
We are a social species and we need to interact in order to feel alive.
My second observation is about internet usage.
All around the world, people are spending more and more of their time on-line.
This shouldn’t come to you as a surprise because
we -in this room- have all played our part in
making the internet a place worth while.
We sing, we argue, we laugh and we talk.
We dream, we love and we turn strangers into good friends.
The same things our ancestors did by their campfires.
Except, we don’t live in the age of Kumbaya anymore.
Technology has broken down the walls of place and time,
making it possible to interact, anyplace and anytime.
In this light, I like to state that the internet
has become our global campfire.
Shaping our minds and driving social interaction.
Now, what happens if we combine these two observations?
We are a social species
and need to interact to feel happy
and because it’s lack of boundaries
the internet has become a popular place to do this.
Does this mean that being online, actually makes you feel happier?
In other words… do all these bits and bytes create a thing called virtual happiness?
This is the hypothesis of the Virtual Happiness Project. I’m proud to announce that today this project has started with a global survey.
Later on two experiments will follow. Because we know that happiness is measurable, and I think these are important issues that need to be addressed.
And… if there is a correlation between being online and happiness,
how is this related to things like:
- information stress
- friendship inflation
- or continiuous partial attention… a topic that Linda Stone has so elequently talked about on this very conference.
Many questions to answer.. and a lot of work to be done. We hope to have our results in February 2009.
And in the mean time I would like to invite you to participate in our survey on www.virtualhappiness.org.
I wish you a happy conference.
And would like to thank you for your attention!
“In this light, I like to state that the internet
has become our global campfire”
That is a statement! In my opinion internet is just a medium, not a warm campfire, where you can dance around, and seduce life and embrace people. Under the cherry moon. watching a digital interface, can you smell burning branches and do you see falling stars outof the sky?
No offense, I love the internet and if you like internet to be a campfire, ok! But in that case I love my real friends and family, gathered around a computer, on the beach, much more
“Incredible study… I strongly believe that as the web continues to evolve, and social interaction again becomes relevant online, we will indeed see a new set of rules formed organically, and one of the questions will be.. What TRULY makes you happy…”
I am so excited about this project. I have always though that the internet had gotten away from the “human factor” during the huge commercialization era. Somehow - as hinted on above, we have managed to get back “on course” as to the original intent of the web - socialization. Socialization is ushering in a totally new paradigm as to how we all see the web, and not only that - how we see ourselves. Just as blogging has proved to be therapeutic, we have only seen the surface of what organic, human connection, really means in our lives, and I would not be surprised if “happiness” is derived from connectedness.
Bravo!! Looking Forward!!
Vincent HUnt™
Is the scientist you refer to in the introduction text Schweitzer or Einstein?
“Albert Schweitzer thought he had a clear definition, when he said that happiness is nothing more but good health and bad memory.(…) And as compelling as that may sound, it turns out Mr. Einstein knew a lot about medicine and about winning Nobel prizes, but he didn’t know an awful lot about happiness research”