To accompany ‘Struggling to find happiness? Here are some paths to positivity’  

SCIENCE

Before Reading:

1. Describe a time when you felt happy. What contributed to this happiness? How important is it to have some happiness in your life?
2. Rank how satisfied you feel with your life on a scale from 1 (least satisfied) to 3 (most satisfied). If you ranked your life satisfaction as a 3, briefly explain one aspect of your life that contributes to your satisfaction. If you ranked your satisfaction as 1 or 2, briefly describe a change that you think would contribute to more life satisfaction. 

During Reading:

1. What year was the first World Happiness Report published?
2. On a scale of 1 to 10, how did young people in the United States rate their happiness in the 2024 World Happiness Report? How does this compare to their happiness level in 2010?
3. Describe the correlation Jean M. Twenge and her team discovered between loneliness and tech use.
4. According to a survey by the Pew Research Center, what percentage of teens texted their friends every day in 2018? What percentage spent time with friends in person?
5. Summarize the impact of stress on a person’s attention to the world around them.
6. Identify one activity that Antonio Crego recommends to address anxiety.
7. How does spending money on others tend to make people feel, according to a 2023 study?
8. The story describes kind acts toward others as part of a “feedback loop” that sustains happiness. What is meant by that idea?
9. In a 2023 study, what feeling did researchers hope to elicit in viewers by watching a Song of the Sea scene?
10. What is one role of the vagus nerve in the body?

After Reading:

1. Laurie Santos says, “There’s lots of evidence that becoming more other-oriented is an important contributor to people’s happiness.” What does she mean by “other-oriented”? Come up with a term to describe the opposite of being other-oriented. Why do you think being other-oriented contributes to a person’s feelings of happiness?
2. Based on what you’ve read, list three changes you could make to your daily routine that might increase your happiness. For one of these changes, point to a study from this story that supports the claim that this change might improve happiness. Pick one from your list that you would be most likely to stick with for a whole week. What is an obstacle you would face in trying to make this change? Devise one way to overcome this obstacle long enough to make the change for a week. Imagine you tried this change and found that it improved your general happiness. To what extent would you consider the sacrifice of making this change worth the benefit?