17 February 2011
TEDxBrighton 2011, 'Reasons to be cheerful'
Mapping happiness across space and time
also on YouTube (works on iPhone/iPad/iPod)
blogged
Keep up to date by subscribing to our research blog. Is Blue Monday a myth? Where are mappiness users located? And more…
as seen on tv
16 October 2010
On BBC One, BBC News Channel and BBC World News
Click
mappiness features on Click, the BBC's flagship technology programme
see it on the BBC website (15.45 – 16.30)
13 October 2010
From Reuters
The app that maps happiness
on the radio
24 September 2013
On BBC Radio
The Naked Scientists
Chris Smith interviews researcher George MacKerron on Mappiness and Citizen Science
listen online (Mappiness features from 47:12)
13 July 2013
On NPR
Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!
Panellists on NPR's quiz programme are unconvinced by findings from Mappiness on how unhappy people are when working
10 June 2013
On BBC Radio 4
Analysis
Analysis explores the Quantified Self, including Mappiness, and asks if life can be measured
listen to the programme (Mappiness features at 11:57)
4 & 11 March 2013
On BBC Radio Sussex & Surrey
Happiness Day
A few days ahead of the UN's International Day of Happiness on 20 March, BBC Radio Sussex & Surrey held their own, telling the news from a positive angle. Neil Pringle talked to George MacKerron about early Mappiness results.
1 December 2011
On ABC Radio National
Future Tense
Researcher George MacKerron describes mappiness to Antony Funnell on Australian radio
listen to the interview (16.30 – 21.30) or read the transcript
11 April 2011
On BBC Radio 4
Click On
George MacKerron discusses the mappiness project with Simon Cox
listen to the interview (23.34 – 28.46)
5 April 2011
On NPR
Marketplace Morning Report
"Happiness is just a smartphone app away" with David Brancaccio
20 October 2010
On News/Talk WJR 760am
The Paul W Smith Show
"There's an app for that": Paul W speaks to researcher George MacKerron
11 October 2010
On BBC Radio 2
Simon Mayo Drivetime
Lead researcher George MacKerron talks to Rebecca Pike about mappiness' preliminary findings
hear it via BBC iPlayer until 17 Oct 2010 (1:35.20 – 1:37.58)
11 October 2010
On BBC Radio 5 live
5 Live Drive
mappiness researcher George MacKerron discusses the happiest days of the week with 5 Live Drive's Peter Allen
hear it via BBC iPlayer until 17 Oct 2010 (26.50 – 29.10)
11 October 2010
On the BBC World Service
Newshour
Is Tuesday the new Monday? James Coomarasamy quizzes mappiness researcher George MacKerron
hear it via BBC iPlayer (50.00 – 53.00)
2010 & 2011
On BBC local radio
Drivetime and breakfast shows
mappiness has also featured on BBC local radio in Scotland, the West Midlands, Berkshire, Kent, Lancashire, Solent and Sussex
in the press
30 June 2013
In The Sunday Times
Our work hang-ups exposed by app
Using data collected from tens of thousands of smartphone users who logged their levels of wellbeing via an app, researchers for the London School of Economics (LSE) found paid work ranked lower than any other activity except being ill in bed. Working led to a 5% drop in happiness, relative to other activities, and sickness to a 20% drop.
16 May 2012
In The Times
An ingenious barometer of weather and happiness
Scientists have found out that experiencing bad weather is about as unpleasant as having to do the washing up.
20 April 2012
In Wired
Mappiness app finds coasts are the most pleasing places
A massive, crowdsourced survey of happiness has shown that a person's mood is strongly associated with the type of terrain around them.
6 November 2011
In the Sunday Times
App pinpoints our 'appiest moment
The Sunday Times reports on the UK's happiest times and activities.
31 October 2011
In the Guardian G2
Confessions of a happychondriac
What happened when somebody created an app that you could tell when and where you were happy and unhappy?
28 July 2011
In the Times Higher Education
The research lab in your pocket: apps and the academy
Apps created by and for the academy could turn smartphones into essential academic tools for everything from teaching and citations to social-science fieldwork
23 April 2011
In the Wall Street Journal
The Really Smart Phone
Researchers are harvesting a wealth of intimate detail from our cellphone data, uncovering the hidden patterns of our social lives
13 February 2011
In the Observer
George MacKerron: 'I can measure how happy you are – and why'
George MacKerron is the inventor of Mappiness, an iPhone app that collates information from thousands of people to find out when, where and why we are at our happiest
12 February 2011
In the Vancouver Sun
How the smart phone can help you do the right thing
Good sustainability decisions are so much each easier to make because of emerging connectivity media
12 October 2010
On the front page of Le Figaro!
Le mardi est déprimant, foi de Britanniques (Tuesday is depressing, say British)
Le lundi, en dépit de sa sinistre réputation, ne serait pas le jour le plus haïssable de la semaine. À en croire des chercheurs de la London School of Economics (LSE), c'est plutôt aux mardis qu'une majorité de la population brittanique réserverait ses humeurs les plus sombres.
12 October 2010
In the Daily Mail
Forget manic Monday, terrible Tuesday is really the most depressing day of the week
If you woke up this morning thinking the toughest day of the week had been and gone, you were wrong. Mondays may have long been thought of as miserable, but we’re more likely to feel down in the dumps on a Tuesday.
11 October 2010
In the Telegraph
Mondays less miserable than Tuesdays, research finds
Bob Geldof famously sang about his dislike of Mondays, but it appears that most people find Tuesday the most miserable day of the week.
11 October 2010
In the Daily Mail
Tuesday is the day we hate most and Slough makes people miserable
When Bob Geldof wrote his hit song I Don't Like Mondays, it became an anthem for every office worker who enjoy their fun-filled weekends and hate the beginning of the week and back to the daily grind. Now a survey using smartphone technology has revealed that Tuesday and not Monday is the day most people feel miserable.
10 October 2010
In the Sunday Times
Get the app, join the happy map
An experiment by the London School of Economics has charted the "emotional index" of the nation, as volunteers keep a track of their emotional states using smartphone technology.
2 October 2010
In the Independent
The 50 best apps
mappiness makes the Independent's top ten in this round-up of the best iPhone apps.
17 August 2010
From Mary Ormsby in the Toronto Star
Happy? Touch this.
Remember when Lucy hugged Snoopy and happiness was a warm puppy? Now, that feel-good state is defined by data bouncing off satellites.
16 August 2010
In the Telegraph
Apple iPhone to 'map happiness'
Mappiness officially launches today, and aims to help researchers understand how people's feelings are affected by their immediate environment. Pollution, noise, weather conditions and green space will be among the factors that data will be compared against.
16 August 2010
On Mark Prigg's Evening Standard blog
Tracking Britain's happiness via mobile phones
Researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science have launched a new iPhone app designed to track how happy the UK is.
15 August 2010
In the Independent on Sunday
The secret of happiness: Family, friends and your environment
In an attempt to better understand how people's feelings are affected by their immediate environment researchers from the London School of Economics will tomorrow launch a "mappiness" project, which aims to track British happiness. Using a free iPhone app, researchers will ask users how they feel at regular intervals, using GPS to pinpoint their location.
and elsewhere
29 August 2013
On YouBeauty
How to Get Happy: Climb a Tree
Attaining in-the-moment happiness courtesy of Mother Nature is a surefire mood-booster—and doesn’t require venturing into the wilderness.
20 February 2013
Chris Dillow / Stumbling & Mumbling
Happiness, work & productivity
… a great new paper by Alex Bryson and George MacKerron shows how even well-paid workers are unhappy whilst they're working.
27 October 2011
Ben Moss on Cary Cooper's blog
'Mappiness' points the way for the government's Happiness Index
… it seems clear to me that 'state-of-the-art' apps like Mappiness point the way to the future of the government's attempts to measure happiness, and more importantly figure it into its policy and decision-making.
1 June 2011
From the Innovation Unit blog
Mappiness: transforming wellbeing research one chirp at a time
Mappiness has the potential to lend an enormous amount of weight to the arguments of those who want to design buildings and cities in ways which improve, rather than detract from, our wellbeing. For a small, friendly program that runs on a mobile phone, that's pretty impressive.
19 January 2011
From Oran Parker's blog
Just how happy are you? "Mappiness" can help you find the answer
What makes this app ultimately work for me is that it's not heavy. It's easy to set up, and easy to use. Also, it's being used for a positive purpose, and helps remind me to constantly ask, "Oran, are you happy?"
18 November 2010
On the 'healthier, happier, more productive' blog
Mappiness
Happiness research may seem easy to criticise. How can we get reliable data? Will participants answer honestly in a survey? If they are filling the survey at school or work how does that environment affect their feelings and answers? … Some of these problems might just have been solved by combining smart-phones and surveys.
1 September 2010
At Vervacious
On mappiness and happiness
If you haven’t caught up with it yet, it’s what can only be described as serious fun: an attempt to map different daily levels of happiness linked by iPhone satnav to where you are on the UK map.
23 August 2010
At discovery.com's Planet Green
Mappiness iPhone App Pinpoints Happy Places
It's commonly thought that if we're happy, we make those around us happier too; conversely, if those around us are happy, we feel happier along with them. So what if you could stake out where the happiest places are located and go there -- or let people know where we're happiest so they can join in? UK researchers are hoping to uncover environmental factors in what makes people happy, and are using one of the most handy tools available -- iPhones.
18 August 2010
At Fast Company
Mappiness iPhone App Measures Happiness in the UK
A pair of researchers from the London School of Economics' Department of Geography & Environment are measuring happiness throughout the UK. And to do it, they've created an iPhone app called Mappiness.
18 August 2010
From Parmy Olson at Forbes
Dr. iPhone’s Happiness App
PhD students are smart, but George MacKerron is in a class of his own. As part of the final year of his research at the London School of Economics, MacKerron, 31, has found a novel way of collecting data for his doctorate: an iPhone application.
16 August 2010
On TechCrunch
Mappiness iPhone App Maps Happiness (Say That Three Times Fast)
Officially launching today is Mappiness, a UK iPhone app that "maps Happiness" by pinging users with a survey in order to plot out their feelings during the day.
13 August 2010
Richard Layard
"A revolutionary research idea"
Professor Lord Richard Layard, Director of the Well-being Programme at LSE's Centre for Economic Performance, says:
Mappiness is a revolutionary research idea. It is the best method so far devised for understanding how people's emotions are affected by the buildings and natural environment in which they move.
10 August 2010
On the nef blog
Real-time happiness data launched for the UK
Having downloaded the app a few days ago I can report that responding is more fun and less onerous than it might sound – and the personal stats it generates provides a really interesting insight in to when and how my mood has been changing.