Facebook is tracking contagious happiness

Happiness is contagious in the social network, spreads more reliably than unhappiness, and you are 15 percent more likely to be happy if your direct connection is happy. People who smile on Facebook are generally friends with other smilers. You can read the full story in Catching Happiness which I reported on in Italian Kisses: catching happiness in love and marriage
Facebook taking happiness seriously
“What does your Facebook status update say? If it includes the words awesome, happy, or tragic, Facebook is paying close attention. With its more than 300 million uses Facebook is “looking at key words to compile a Gross National Happiness Index (GNHI).” Are you happy? Facebook wants to know.
People want to be happy. And when we are unhappy, we try escapism, pill popping, or drinking.
Celebrity affairs
Escapism may be one reason we are so obsessed with peaks in the news that take our minds off of the economy, a real downer. Whether it is the sensuous voice of Susan Boyle or the sexcapades of Mark Sanford and John Edwards or David Letterman, we get a moment or two that takes our minds off of present day worries and cares. Susan Boyle: Yale physician weighs in on rainbow in our recession
Happiness, the priceless commodity
“Happiness is a priceless commodity,” says Dr. Richard Barker, director general of the Pharmaceutical Association of Great Britain. “It cannot be bought, sold, exchanged, or prescribed for that matter.”
Nonetheless, pharmaceutical companies spend over $4 billion a year on television ads. Direct-to-consumer advertising has an emotional appeal. The ads seem to imply that drugs can cure everything from depression, social anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders to restless-leg syndrome. Their message: “We can be happier.”
In an interview I did with Dr. Barker regarding happiness and medication, he pointed out that while perscription drugs have a place in the treatment of certain disorders, “prescription drugs cannot bestow happiness.”
In a September 2008 report, the National Center for Health Statistics said that in any two-week period, one in 20 Americans is depressed. However, fewer than 30 percent see a mental-health professional.
So pills are popped and drinks poured to provide a temporary happiness mask.
Some dos and don’ts

Avoid the misery loves company crowd
Stop finger pointing (every finger pointed at another means three pointing back to you)
Don’t look for trouble (In the coming weeks I will reprint my Today Show interview, “Happiness vs. Hostility” with Matt Lauer.

For happiness, do

Facebook with happy friends
See the cup as half full instead of half empty
Laugh often
Be forgiving

When the chips are down, rather than remain in one’s own little world, how much better it would be to adapt a positive attitude and talk to one’s spouse or friends. Rabbi Irwin Kula, in Yearnings: Embracing the Sacred Messiness of Life, tells us, “The more we allow ourselves to unfold, the less likely we are to unravel.”
Adapted from my newspaper column: Seeking Happiness with Pills and Coping Skills
Other happiness advice from our Examiners:

Are you happy, baby? and also Happiness and health research from our Health and Happiness Examiner
Happiness: daily dose of love and Modern love and the secret of women who know happiness

Study: Sexually satisfied women experience well-being from Charlotte Health and Happiness Examiner (This article accurately depicts the research)
The pursuit of happiness North-Bay-Practical-Spirituality-Examiner

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