Happiness is the metric of the future – but there are problems with how we measure it
Jessica Pykett, University of Birmingham Move over GDP: happiness is angling to become the metric of the future. Nation states have begun to compete in global happiness rankings and plan policy according to statistics of well-being. Most recently, New Zealand announced that its 2019 budget will report on how national spending impacts on well-being. City authorities are developing “smart” approaches to measuring happiness, mobilising an ever-increasing array of mobile apps and behavioural data that aim to sense, map and explain our daily happiness. For example, the Smart Dubai Office launched their Smart Happiness Index earlier in 2018, which promises to assess the performance of their city managers based on happiness gain per funds spent. This emphasis comes off the back of the academic field of happiness studies, which has emerged as a credible science – with its own research centres and academic journals – since the turn of the 21st century. A simple Google Scho...