filed in Happy Ever After, Myths and stereotypes
Does Facebook Know If We’re Happy?
Valentines Day was a piece of cake, or more precisely, a chicken pot pie, which I made from an Ina Garten recipe for friends who were coming to dinner. The midday weather was spectacular, and while my dough was resting in the fridge, I took Rose for a stroll in the park, and afterwards, we all watched the Olympics on TV. In other words, I felt happy. That is, until I stumbled onto Facebookâs Relationships and Happiness page, and their Gross National Happiness Index, which measures happiness based on the positive or negative words people use in their status updates. What a ludicrous barometer. “Just as expected,” FB writes, “people who are in a relationship or marriage do seem to be happier than everyone else.”
I will NOT let social media ruin my buzz. Let’s get the expert, Bella DePaulo, on the case.
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I just left the following comment at the FB page:
“Wow! We’re now drawing fallacious conclusions from convenience samples! That’s a whole new level of couplemania… As Gary pointed out, the cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy is playing a big part here. On top of mixing up correlation & causation, the FB community is hardly a representative sample.
For those of you who are interested, I can … See Morehighly recommend Bella DePaulo’s “Singled Out.” In the second chapter she takes apart research studies that supposedly show that married/coupled people are happier. They aren’t if you design the study scientifically (in this case that means using longitudinal studies).
And as an aside, I am really bothered by FB using my status messages for crappy “research” like this. Actually, using it for anything! How can I opt out?”
Thanks for the shout-out, Wendy. And Rachel, you are exactly right.