The duration of daily activities has no impact on measures of overall wellbeing

It is widely assumed that the longer we spend in happier activities the happier we will be. In an intensive study of momentary happiness, we show that, in fact, longer time spent in happier activities does not lead to higher levels of reported happiness overall. This finding is replicated with different samples (student and diverse, multi-national panel), measures and methods of analysis. We explore different explanations for this seemingly paradoxical finding, providing fresh insight into the factors that do and do not affect the relationship between how happy we report feeling as a function of how long it lasts. This work calls into question the assumption that spending more time doing what we like will show up in making us happier, presenting a fundamental challenge to the validity of current tools used to measure happiness.

Automated summary

It is widely believed that spending more time in happier activities leads to higher levels of happiness. However, a study found that longer time spent in happier activities does not necessarily result in overall higher happiness levels. This research challenges the validity of current tools used to measure happiness.