Person
1 episodes · 22 quoted claims
Santos cites David Sedaris's article The Fitbit Life as an example of an extrinsic reward, step counts, overtaking the intrinsic enjoyment of exercise.
“the fiction writer David Sedaris has this wonderful, uh, article called The Fitbit Life, where he talks about how he wanted to get fit.”
A 2010 study by Daniel Kahneman found that reported stress and positive emotion stopped improving with income at roughly $75,000 in 2010 dollars.
“And it levels off in 2010 dollars at around $75,000. What does that mean? That means if you get more than $75,000, um, you're not gonna feel any less stressed.”
Nick Epley and colleagues paid people with a $10 Starbucks gift card to talk to strangers and found it raised their positive emotion.
“they offer people like $10 Starbucks gift card to just talk to somebody. Um, usually talk to a stranger like that they don't know on the train.”
Santos says musician David Byrne wrote an article called Eliminating the Human arguing that recent technologies largely remove human contact as friction.
“He wrote this really cool article in, um, called Eliminating the Human, where he made the claim that pretty much every technological invention of the last twenty years has been”
Santos says self-report surveys show roughly 70 to 75 percent of young people today describe themselves as lonely.
“young people today report being lonely at rates of, like, seventy, 75%, right? More people are lonely, extremely lonely than not right now.”
Santos says Princeton studies found double-digit performance gains on math or studying tests when the phone was in another room.
“a math test or a studying test with your phone there versus a phone in the other room, and you see like double digit increases in performance just to have your phone away.”
A paper by Liz Dunn found 30% less smiling between strangers in a waiting room when phones were present.
“she finds that there's 30% less smiling at the other people in the waiting room when your phones are present, 30% less.”
Santos says worldwide gum sales fell at the same rate that the number of iPhones rose, which she attributes to people looking at their phones in checkout lines.
“the national, worldwide sale of gum has gone down, and it's gone down on the same slope as the iPhones have gone up.”
Sonja Lyubomirsky's study found that writing down 3 to 5 gratitudes or delights for as little as two weeks significantly improved life satisfaction.
“Sonja Lyubomirsky has this lovely study where if you scribble down 3 to 5 things you're grateful for, or 3 to 5 delights, in as little as 2 weeks, you significantly improve your overall satisfaction with life, right?”
Santos says a Georgetown researcher found that climate-anxious people reported less positive emotion, while those taking climate action reported more.
“And he finds that the people who are really climate anxious, they tend to have less positive emotions. You're really worried about climate change, you tend to be more on the depressed, anxious side.”
Santos says the United States ranks low on the World Happiness Report relative to its wealth and recently fell out of the top 10.
“the US, for a very wealthy country, is, like, not very happy. We're pretty low on the scale.”
Santos studied rhesus monkeys at Cayo Santiago, an island off Puerto Rico that is home to about 1,000 free-ranging rhesus monkeys.
“a field site called Cayo Santiago. It's this island off the coast of Puerto Rico, and it's home to 1,000 free-ranging rhesus monkeys.”
Santos cites meta-analyses showing that half an hour of daily cardio exercise reduces depression symptoms about as well as antidepressant medication.
“Meta-analyses showing, you know, half hour of cardio exercise a day is as good as an antidepressant medication for reducing symptoms of depression.”
Santos says that feeling extremely short of time, called time famine, hurts self-reported well-being about as much as being unemployed.
“That's as big a hit on your well-being as if you self-report being unemployed.”
Harvard Business School researcher Ashley Whillans theorizes that much of low income's hit to happiness comes from the time it costs, such as long bus commutes and multiple jobs.
“Her theory is a lot of that actually has to do with time.”
Journalist Brigid Schulte calls the small scattered chunks of free time in modern life time confetti.
“these little chunks of time are what the, uh, journalist Bridget Shulte calls time confetti, which I think is such a great image of it.”
Researchers who coded the facial expressions of Olympic medalists found that silver medalists showed expressions like contempt and deep sadness, and bronze medalists were often happier.
“if you code their facial muscles, they're showing expressions like contempt, deep sadness.”
Santos says Gabriele Oettingen's lab at New York University found that vividly fantasizing about a goal such as fitness makes people less motivated to act.
“there's evidence from Gabrielle Oettingen's lab at NYU that, like, you actually get less motivated to do stuff.”
Santos says that within about two months of Roger Bannister's first sub-four-minute mile, another runner also broke four minutes, which she calls the Bannister effect.
“He ran it, and then within, like, 2 months, somebody else broke the 4-minute mile.”
Santos says Denmark's cultural idea of Jante's Law discourages people from thinking they are better than others, the opposite of American achievement culture.
“the Danes have this idea of Jante's Law, I'm probably pronouncing this poorly, but J-N-T-E's Law, which is the idea is like, you aren't really supposed to be better than anybody else.”
Amy Wrzesniewski of the University of Pennsylvania studied job crafting, in which hospital janitorial workers build their personal strengths into their work.
“She studies signature strengths in hospital janitorial staff workers, um, who are, you know, these are people who are cleaning the linen in a hospital room or mopping the floors and stuff.”
In a study by Lara Aknin and colleagues, people given $20 reported being happier when they spent it on someone else than on themselves.
“One study, uh, by Lara Acquananno and colleagues did this study where they walk up to people on the street and hand them 20 bucks.”