There is increasing evidence that smartphones, social media, and even text messaging are major causes of rising unhappiness. Ironically, phones and social media, intended to foster connection between people and make them happier, are leading to increasing isolation and unhappiness. These studies, however, are almost all based on correlations (depression may cause people to spend more time on Facebook, just as spending more time on Facebook may make people sad), and largely ignore the possible benefits of recent technological advances.
Phones can be--and are--used in many ways to enhance well-being. There are excellent apps for meditation (calm, headspace), learning (duolingo), well-being (happify), listening to music and podcasts, and exercise (MyFitnessPal, fitbit, …). However, less attention, beyond dating apps, has been given to the potential of smartphones for fostering and enhancing offline interpersonal connections -- with the happy exception of some platforms like Meetup and Nextdoor.
We describe studies that we have underway in which we have installed apps on people’s phones (with their permission, of course) to monitor their communications and geolocation, and correlate them with subjective well being, with the goal of better understanding the relationship between online and offline connection.