I was recently running a similar iPhone app called mappiness, which is associated with a research project from the London School of Economics that appears to be all but identical to Track Your Happiness.
A couple of days ago I deleted it, because I found myself unable to give meaningful answers to the three questions it asks, of how happy, relaxed, and awake I am. I ended up with a couple of hundred sample points which, however plotted, looked like random noise.
I had a similar experience with this Track Your Happiness thing.
It ended up becoming annoying to answer the questions, in part because it seemed that my happiness level was almost always the same within measurement error.
The only information that came out of it was that I’m happier when I’m doing what I want to do- and I already knew that.
A couple of days ago I deleted it, because I found myself unable to give meaningful answers to the three questions it asks, of how happy, relaxed, and awake I am.
You don’t just feel like @#%# or surprisingly happy? Those are the sort of things that we can hope to trace the causes for.
You don’t just feel like @#%# or surprisingly happy? Those are the sort of things that we can hope to trace the causes for.
No. I can feel that way about particular events or situations, but people seem to be describing a free-floating pervasive mood that goes up and down without their knowing why, and that is not something I experience. Maybe I’m naturally in some sort of Buddhist or Stoic state of enlightenment, but it doesn’t feel like it. Or maybe it comes from the personal development courses I took a long time ago.
I can feel that way about particular events or situation
I think that is a representation of your emotional state.
To me it’s the nature of the unforced content of thoughts that flow through your mind. These are being selected out of a vast universe of possible thoughts, thus there is meaning in which ones are chosen. We examine facts about the world and rotate them in various perspectives and when we’re happy they take on more positive characteristics.
Oh my, look at my coffee mug, I’ve had this thing for 10 years. It’s like my good buddy still standing strong.
vs.
My coffee mug is seriously stained. That seems to happen more frequently at its age. I’m gonna have to wash it again.
These are both about the coffee mug. They are more likely to occur in one mood over another. The second one implies a behavioral change is necessary (cleaning the mug more often or getting another one), which I suspect is generally the role of more negative moods. Although the first one might lead to mug cleaning to keep your good buddy shiny, it’s an action taken in the present not a judgment about failed actions in the past.
But to determine your mood from them I suppose you need to be able to measure those statements and contrast them against a reference. The reference if not somehow made objective, may also be subject to changes according to your mood. So the sample and reference move in parity and the difference between them is noise. Fleeting thoughts are like dreams that don’t get retained in memory. It can be difficult to remember precisely how you were thinking at any time in the past, such as to compare different mood states. Just theorizing..
I was recently running a similar iPhone app called mappiness, which is associated with a research project from the London School of Economics that appears to be all but identical to Track Your Happiness.
A couple of days ago I deleted it, because I found myself unable to give meaningful answers to the three questions it asks, of how happy, relaxed, and awake I am. I ended up with a couple of hundred sample points which, however plotted, looked like random noise.
I had a similar experience with this Track Your Happiness thing.
It ended up becoming annoying to answer the questions, in part because it seemed that my happiness level was almost always the same within measurement error.
The only information that came out of it was that I’m happier when I’m doing what I want to do- and I already knew that.
You don’t just feel like @#%# or surprisingly happy? Those are the sort of things that we can hope to trace the causes for.
No. I can feel that way about particular events or situations, but people seem to be describing a free-floating pervasive mood that goes up and down without their knowing why, and that is not something I experience. Maybe I’m naturally in some sort of Buddhist or Stoic state of enlightenment, but it doesn’t feel like it. Or maybe it comes from the personal development courses I took a long time ago.
I think that is a representation of your emotional state.
To me it’s the nature of the unforced content of thoughts that flow through your mind. These are being selected out of a vast universe of possible thoughts, thus there is meaning in which ones are chosen. We examine facts about the world and rotate them in various perspectives and when we’re happy they take on more positive characteristics.
vs.
These are both about the coffee mug. They are more likely to occur in one mood over another. The second one implies a behavioral change is necessary (cleaning the mug more often or getting another one), which I suspect is generally the role of more negative moods. Although the first one might lead to mug cleaning to keep your good buddy shiny, it’s an action taken in the present not a judgment about failed actions in the past.
But to determine your mood from them I suppose you need to be able to measure those statements and contrast them against a reference. The reference if not somehow made objective, may also be subject to changes according to your mood. So the sample and reference move in parity and the difference between them is noise. Fleeting thoughts are like dreams that don’t get retained in memory. It can be difficult to remember precisely how you were thinking at any time in the past, such as to compare different mood states. Just theorizing..