Do Your Favorite Pastimes Really Make You Happy? - Tucker Vann

Post 1 - 5/6/15 

For starters, here’s a brief list of things that I would consider hobbies and that I think make me happy.

• Snowboarding
• Foosball
• Football
• Working out
• Baseball
• Trap Shooting

These are all physical things yes, but they certainly do not have to be. People may enjoy star gazing, or reading books. The fact of the matter is that people like to partake in things that make them happy. Duh. A recent study at the University of Denver may change your mind. This is an activity log created by a student.

Activity Log

Monday, April 13th – Played football for one hour

Wednesday, April 15th – Played football for one hour

Monday, April 20th – Played football for one hour

Wednesday, April 22nd – Played football for one hour

Monday April 27th – Played football for one hour

Wednesday April 29th – Played football for one hour

Post 2 - 5/8/15

Students at the University compiled over six weeks’ worth of data based on their personal happiness. They were instructed to keep detailed logs of their daily activities, especially the particular ones that had significant effects on their happiness. On a scale of 1-10 they kept record of themselves, three times a day for six weeks. Here is an example of one student’s first week.

23-Mar	6	7	6	6.33	First Day of Classes/Baseball Control
24-Mar	5	6	8	6.33	8am Lab/1 more class, content/Country Music
25-Mar	3	3	7	4.33	Not Prepared for Snow/Impending HW/Hitting
26-Mar	6	6	8	6.67	ALMOST FRIDAY!!!
27-Mar	7	7	7	7.00	Friday, baseball games tomorrow
28-Mar	8	8	9	8.33	Mom came, baseball games, Star thing
29-Mar	6	5	4	5.00	We lost, Hockey lost, tomorrow's Monday

They also averaged the totals of the three times of the day to see if that could possibly have any affect.  The averages revealed on what particular day the subjects tended to be happiest. How well would your average day compare?

Post 3 - 5/10/15 

The results of each individual were categorized into a series of averages including time of day over the first three and last three weeks, by day, by week, and overall. They were compiled into summary charts and were shared between the students. For example,

Mood Data Summary
	Mean Score	Standard Deviation	Range
Weeks 1-3	6.35	1.855	2-10
Weeks 4-6	6.89	1.533	4-10
Total	6.62	1.715	2-10

Weekly Mood Averages

Week 1	Week 2	Week 3	Week 4	Week 5	Week 6
6.29	6.95	5.81	6.67	6.71	7.29

Daily Mood Averages

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday
Weeks 1-3	6.33	5.67	5.78	7.44	8.33	6.56	4.33
Weeks 4-6	6.67	6.89	7.56	6.33	7.11	7.67	6.00
Total	6.5	6.28	6.67	6.89	7.72	7.11	5.17

Time of Day Mood Averages

	Morning	Afternoon	Evening/Night
Weeks 1-3	6.19	6.43	6.43
Weeks 4-6	6.52	6.71	7.43
Total	6.36	6.57	6.93

By using these charts, the students were able to collaborate with all of the same data to draw their own conclusions on what made people happiest.

Post 4 - 5/12/15

The results of this experiment showed that adding an extra activity in each week did little to increase people’s overall happiness. The difference between doing the activity and not doing it was less than 1%. This small of a margin could be a result of too small of a data range with respect to time. The experiment was only done over a six week period. If done over a longer period say six months to a year, the results could have varied significantly. A likely reason for this is that during the DU experiment, if something major happened in someone’s life, it would affect them for more of the data range.

Another possibility for the insignificant margin is that the drag of an average college school day masked anything gained from hobbies. Most of the tests were done during the school week which means that students were under the most stress at this time. The hobbies may have even taken away from time that would otherwise be spent on schoolwork, leading to an increase in stress. This has the exact opposite effect of what was designed.

Is it plausible that our favorite pastimes may not contribute to overall happiness?