Social Progress

Michael Porter on social progress (excerpt):

Why Social Progress Matters

Economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and improved the lives of many more over the last half-century. Yet it is increasingly evident that a model of human development based on economic progress alone is incomplete. A society which fails to address basic human needs, equip citizens to improve their quality of life, protect the environment, and provide opportunity for many of its citizens is not succeeding. Inclusive growth requires both economic and social progress.

This Just In: Facebook Won’t Really Make You Happy

Previous research on the impact of online social networks suggest that they have a positive influence on happiness, but there’s a possible omitted variable bias involved. Larger online social networks might just be indicative of someone who would tend to have a larger network of friends anyway.

In this new NBER paper, a new Canadian dataset that covers both online and real world friendships offers a potential avenue to disentangle which one is actually more important (abstract):

Comparing the Happiness Effects of Real and On-line Friends
John F. Helliwell, Haifang Huang

A recent large Canadian survey permits us to compare real-time and on-line social networks as sources of subjective well-being. The sample of 5,000 is drawn randomly from an on-line pool of respondents, a group well placed to have and value on-line friendships. We find three key results. First, the number of real-life friends is positively correlated with subjective well-being (SWB) even after controlling for income, demographic variables and personality differences. Doubling the number of friends in real life has an equivalent effect on well-being as a 50% increase in income. Second, the size of online networks is largely uncorrelated with subjective well-being. Third, we find that real-life friends are much more important for people who are single, divorced, separated or widowed than they are for people who are married or living with a partner. Findings from large international surveys (the European Social Surveys 2002-2008) are used to confirm the importance of real-life social networks to SWB; they also indicate a significantly smaller value of social networks to married or partnered couples.

Basically what they found was that real life friendships matter the most – the effect of online social networks was negligible. Marriage or even dating act as effective potential substitutes, as does close family.

All those “likes”? Don’t count on’em.

Technical Notes

Helliwell, John F. & Haifang Huang, "Comparing the Happiness Effects of Real and On-line Friends", NBER Working Paper No. 18690, January 2013

And Now For Something Completely Different…

Happiness is seven apples a day (abstract):

Is Psychological Well-being Linked to the Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables?
David G. Blanchflower, Andrew J. Oswald, Sarah Stewart-Brown

Humans run on a fuel called food. Yet economists and other social scientists rarely study what people eat. We provide simple evidence consistent with the existence of a link between the consumption of fruit and vegetables and high well-being. In cross-sectional data, happiness and mental health rise in an approximately dose-response way with the number of daily portions of fruit and vegetables. The pattern is remarkably robust to adjustment for a large number of other demographic, social and economic variables. Well-being peaks at approximately 7 portions per day. We document this relationship in three data sets, covering approximately 80,000 randomly selected British individuals, and for seven measures of well-being (life satisfaction, WEMWBS mental well-being, GHQ mental disorders, self-reported health, happiness, nervousness, and feeling low). Reverse causality and problems of confounding remain possible. We discuss the strengths and weaknesses of our analysis, how government policy-makers might wish to react to it, and what kinds of further research -- especially randomized trials -- would be valuable.

What can I say? Eat your fruits and vegetables.

I’m definitely saving this one to show my daughter.

Technical Notes

Blanchflower, David G., and Andrew J. Oswald & Sarah Stewart-Brown, "Is Psychological Well-being Linked to the Consumption of Fruit and Vegetables?", NBER Working Paper No. 18469, October 2012