To answer this question, Matt Killingsworth built an app to track happiness and let people report their feelings in real time. Killingsworth designs studies that gather data on happiness. (You can read more about Killingsworth and his studies). In this Ted Talk, he discusses the results of his study, mainly, that we’re often happiest when we’re in the moment. We’re at our unhappiest when the mind wanders. “People are substantially less happy when their minds are wandering than when they’re not. […] How often do people’s mind’s wander? Turns out, they wander a lot. In fact, really a lot. 47 per cent of the time, people are thinking about something other than what they are currently doing.”
To view the original Ted Talk, click here.
