0:00:00.944,0:00:03.566 So, people want a lot of things out of life, 0:00:03.566,0:00:07.461 but I think, more than anything else, they want happiness. 0:00:07.461,0:00:10.789 Aristotle called happiness "the chief good," the end 0:00:10.789,0:00:14.061 towards which all other things aim. 0:00:14.061,0:00:19.581 According to this view, the reason we want a big house 0:00:19.581,0:00:22.214 or a nice car 0:00:22.214,0:00:24.294 or a good job 0:00:24.294,0:00:26.742 isn't that these things are intrinsically valuable. 0:00:26.742,0:00:29.260 It's that we expect them to bring us 0:00:29.260,0:00:30.717 happiness. 0:00:30.717,0:00:33.349 Now in the last 50 years, we Americans have gotten 0:00:33.349,0:00:35.376 a lot of the things that we want. We're richer. 0:00:35.376,0:00:38.453 We live longer. We have access to technology 0:00:38.453,0:00:40.620 that would have seemed like science fiction 0:00:40.620,0:00:42.861 just a few years ago. 0:00:42.861,0:00:45.285 The paradox of happiness is that even though the 0:00:45.285,0:00:48.187 objective conditions of our lives have improved dramatically, 0:00:48.187,0:00:51.751 we haven't actually gotten any happier. 0:00:51.751,0:00:54.670 Maybe because these conventional notions of progress 0:00:54.670,0:00:57.146 haven't delivered big benefits in terms of happiness, 0:00:57.146,0:00:59.276 there's been an increased interest in recent years 0:00:59.276,0:01:01.798 in happiness itself. 0:01:01.798,0:01:03.833 People have been debating the causes of happiness 0:01:03.833,0:01:06.432 for a really long time, in fact for thousands of years, 0:01:06.432,0:01:09.889 but it seems like many of those debates remain unresolved. 0:01:09.889,0:01:11.948 Well, as with many other domains in life, I think 0:01:11.948,0:01:15.160 the scientific method has the potential to answer this question. 0:01:15.160,0:01:17.694 In fact, in the last few years, there's been an explosion 0:01:17.694,0:01:20.495 in research on happiness. For example, we've learned a lot 0:01:20.495,0:01:23.607 about its demographics, how things like income 0:01:23.607,0:01:27.033 and education, gender and marriage relate to it. 0:01:27.033,0:01:29.255 But one of the puzzles this has revealed is that 0:01:29.255,0:01:32.194 factors like these don't seem to have a particularly strong effect. 0:01:32.194,0:01:34.631 Yes, it's better to make more money rather than less, 0:01:34.631,0:01:37.343 or to graduate from college instead of dropping out, 0:01:37.343,0:01:40.104 but the differences in happiness tend to be small. 0:01:40.104,0:01:43.939 Which leaves the question, what are the big causes of happiness? 0:01:43.939,0:01:46.636 I think that's a question we haven't really answered yet, 0:01:46.636,0:01:49.348 but I think something that has the potential to be an answer 0:01:49.348,0:01:52.069 is that maybe happiness has an awful lot to do with 0:01:52.069,0:01:54.513 the contents of our moment-to-moment experiences. 0:01:54.513,0:01:56.508 It certainly seems that we're going about our lives, 0:01:56.508,0:02:00.443 that what we're doing, who we're with, what we're thinking about, 0:02:00.443,0:02:02.795 have a big influence on our happiness, and yet 0:02:02.795,0:02:05.028 these are the very factors that have been very difficult, 0:02:05.028,0:02:07.415 in fact almost impossible, for scientists to study. 0:02:07.415,0:02:10.476 A few years ago, I came up with a way to study people's happiness 0:02:10.476,0:02:13.055 moment to moment as they're going about their daily lives 0:02:13.055,0:02:15.797 on a massive scale all over the world, something we'd never 0:02:15.797,0:02:18.588 been able to do before. Called trackyourhappiness.org, 0:02:18.588,0:02:22.874 it uses the iPhone to monitor people's happiness in real time. 0:02:22.874,0:02:25.663 How does this work? Basically, I send people signals 0:02:25.663,0:02:28.103 at random points throughout the day, and then I ask them 0:02:28.103,0:02:30.391 a bunch of questions about their moment-to-moment experience 0:02:30.391,0:02:32.925 at the instant just before the signal. 0:02:32.925,0:02:35.732 The idea is that, if we can watch how people's happiness 0:02:35.732,0:02:38.356 goes up and down over the course of the day, 0:02:38.356,0:02:40.084 minute to minute in some cases, 0:02:40.084,0:02:42.226 and try to understand how what people are doing, 0:02:42.226,0:02:45.069 who they're with, what they're thinking about, and all 0:02:45.069,0:02:47.245 the other factors that describe our day, how those might 0:02:47.245,0:02:49.956 relate to those changes in happiness, we might be able 0:02:49.956,0:02:51.502 to discover some of the things that really have 0:02:51.502,0:02:53.807 a big influence on happiness. 0:02:53.807,0:02:56.113 We've been fortunate with this project to collect 0:02:56.113,0:02:58.971 quite a lot of data, a lot more data of this kind than I think 0:02:58.971,0:03:00.830 has ever been collected before, 0:03:00.830,0:03:04.051 over 650,000 real-time reports 0:03:04.051,0:03:06.930 from over 15,000 people. 0:03:06.930,0:03:10.039 And it's not just a lot of people, it's a really diverse group, 0:03:10.039,0:03:13.526 people from a wide range of ages, from 18 to late 80s, 0:03:13.526,0:03:16.454 a wide range of incomes, education levels, 0:03:16.454,0:03:19.517 people who are married, divorced, widowed, etc. 0:03:19.517,0:03:21.781 They collectively represent every one of 0:03:21.781,0:03:26.642 86 occupational categories and hail from over 80 countries. 0:03:26.642,0:03:29.544 What I'd like to do with the rest of my time with you today 0:03:29.544,0:03:31.673 is talk a little bit about one of the areas that we've been 0:03:31.673,0:03:34.856 investigating, and that's mind-wandering. 0:03:34.856,0:03:37.256 As human beings, we have this unique ability 0:03:37.256,0:03:40.191 to have our minds stray away from the present. 0:03:40.191,0:03:42.116 This guy is sitting here working on his computer, 0:03:42.116,0:03:43.170 and yet he could be thinking about 0:03:43.170,0:03:45.859 the vacation he had last month, 0:03:45.859,0:03:47.822 wondering what he's going to have for dinner. 0:03:47.822,0:03:51.655 Maybe he's worried that he's going bald. (Laughter) 0:03:51.655,0:03:54.440 This ability to focus our attention on something other 0:03:54.440,0:03:57.695 than the present is really amazing. It allows us to learn 0:03:57.695,0:04:02.189 and plan and reason in ways that no other species of animal can. 0:04:02.189,0:04:04.587 And yet it's not clear what the relationship is 0:04:04.587,0:04:08.503 between our use of this ability and our happiness. 0:04:08.503,0:04:10.361 You've probably heard people suggest that you should 0:04:10.361,0:04:12.852 stay focused on the present. "Be here now," 0:04:12.852,0:04:14.337 you've probably heard a hundred times. 0:04:14.337,0:04:17.018 Maybe, to really be happy, we need to stay completely 0:04:17.018,0:04:20.529 immersed and focused on our experience in the moment. 0:04:20.529,0:04:22.363 Maybe these people are right. Maybe mind-wandering 0:04:22.363,0:04:24.093 is a bad thing. 0:04:24.093,0:04:26.512 On the other hand, when our minds wander, 0:04:26.512,0:04:29.173 they're unconstrained. We can't change the physical reality 0:04:29.173,0:04:32.561 in front of us, but we can go anywhere in our minds. 0:04:32.561,0:04:34.374 Since we know people want to be happy, maybe 0:04:34.374,0:04:37.065 when our minds wander, they're going to someplace happier than the place 0:04:37.065,0:04:39.298 that they're leaving. It would make a lot of sense. 0:04:39.298,0:04:40.796 In other words, maybe the pleasures of the mind 0:04:40.796,0:04:45.222 allow us to increase our happiness with mind-wandering. 0:04:45.222,0:04:47.233 Well, since I'm a scientist, I'd like to try to 0:04:47.233,0:04:49.910 resolve this debate with some data, and in particular 0:04:49.910,0:04:52.398 I'd like to present some data to you from three questions 0:04:52.398,0:04:54.608 that I ask with Track Your Happiness. Remember, this is from 0:04:54.608,0:04:57.260 sort of moment-to-moment experience in people's real lives. 0:04:57.260,0:05:00.290 There are three questions. The first one is a happiness question: 0:05:00.290,0:05:03.165 How do you feel, on a scale ranging from very bad 0:05:03.165,0:05:07.304 to very good? Second, an activity question: 0:05:07.304,0:05:09.832 What are you doing, on a list of 22 different activities 0:05:09.832,0:05:13.057 including things like eating and working and watching TV? 0:05:13.057,0:05:16.645 And finally a mind-wandering question: 0:05:16.645,0:05:19.287 Are you thinking about something other 0:05:19.287,0:05:21.910 than what you're currently doing? 0:05:21.910,0:05:25.352 People could say no -- in other words, I'm focused only on my task -- 0:05:25.352,0:05:27.881 or yes -- I am thinking about something else -- 0:05:27.881,0:05:30.337 and the topic of those thoughts are pleasant, 0:05:30.337,0:05:31.763 neutral or unpleasant. 0:05:31.763,0:05:37.222 Any of those yes responses are what we called mind-wandering. 0:05:37.222,0:05:39.687 So what did we find? 0:05:39.687,0:05:41.986 This graph shows happiness on the vertical axis, 0:05:41.986,0:05:44.226 and you can see that bar there representing how happy 0:05:44.226,0:05:45.559 people are when they're focused on the present, 0:05:45.559,0:05:47.482 when they're not mind-wandering. 0:05:47.482,0:05:51.201 As it turns out, people are substantially less happy 0:05:51.201,0:05:55.937 when their minds are wandering than when they're not. 0:05:55.937,0:05:58.539 Now you might look at this result and say, okay, sure, 0:05:58.539,0:06:00.961 on average people are less happy when they're mind-wandering, 0:06:00.961,0:06:02.629 but surely when their minds are straying away 0:06:02.629,0:06:04.748 from something that wasn't very enjoyable to begin with, 0:06:04.748,0:06:08.512 at least then mind-wandering should be doing something good for us. 0:06:08.512,0:06:11.211 Nope. As it turns out, 0:06:11.211,0:06:12.903 people are less happy when they're mind-wandering 0:06:12.903,0:06:15.929 no matter what they're doing. For example, 0:06:15.929,0:06:18.106 people don't really like commuting to work very much. 0:06:18.106,0:06:20.866 It's one of their least enjoyable activities, and yet 0:06:20.866,0:06:23.400 they are substantially happier when they're focused 0:06:23.400,0:06:25.762 only on their commute than when their mind is going 0:06:25.762,0:06:28.809 off to something else. 0:06:28.809,0:06:30.591 It's amazing. 0:06:30.591,0:06:34.436 So how could this be happening? I think part of the reason, 0:06:34.436,0:06:36.834 a big part of the reason, is that when our minds wander, 0:06:36.834,0:06:39.690 we often think about unpleasant things, and they are 0:06:39.690,0:06:43.297 enormously less happy when they do that, 0:06:43.297,0:06:45.962 our worries, our anxieties, our regrets, 0:06:45.962,0:06:48.922 and yet even when people are thinking about something 0:06:48.922,0:06:51.786 neutral, they're still considerably less happy 0:06:51.786,0:06:53.763 than when they're not mind-wandering at all. 0:06:53.763,0:06:56.598 Even when they're thinking about something they would describe as pleasant, 0:06:56.598,0:06:58.802 they're actually just slightly less happy 0:06:58.802,0:07:02.059 than when they aren't mind-wandering. 0:07:02.059,0:07:04.121 If mind-wandering were a slot machine, it would be like 0:07:04.121,0:07:07.154 having the chance to lose 50 dollars, 20 dollars 0:07:07.154,0:07:13.305 or one dollar. Right? You'd never want to play. (Laughter) 0:07:13.305,0:07:15.978 So I've been talking about this, suggesting, perhaps, 0:07:15.978,0:07:18.790 that mind-wandering causes unhappiness, but all 0:07:18.790,0:07:21.557 I've really shown you is that these two things are correlated. 0:07:21.557,0:07:24.342 It's possible that's the case, but it might also be the case 0:07:24.342,0:07:26.796 that when people are unhappy, then they mind-wander. 0:07:26.796,0:07:29.165 Maybe that's what's really going on. How could we ever 0:07:29.165,0:07:32.254 disentangle these two possibilites? 0:07:32.254,0:07:34.598 Well, one fact that we can take advantage of, I think a fact 0:07:34.598,0:07:37.555 you'll all agree is true, is that time goes forward, not 0:07:37.555,0:07:41.552 backward. Right? The cause has to come before the effect. 0:07:41.552,0:07:44.982 We're lucky in this data we have many responses from each person, 0:07:44.982,0:07:48.178 and so we can look and see, does mind-wandering 0:07:48.178,0:07:50.671 tend to precede unhappiness, or does unhappiness 0:07:50.671,0:07:52.854 tend to precede mind-wandering, to get some insight 0:07:52.854,0:07:55.015 into the causal direction. 0:07:55.015,0:07:58.224 As it turns out, there is a strong relationship between 0:07:58.224,0:08:01.909 mind-wandering now and being unhappy a short time later, 0:08:01.909,0:08:05.628 consistent with the idea that mind-wandering is causing people to be unhappy. 0:08:05.628,0:08:08.788 In contrast, there's no relationship between being unhappy 0:08:08.788,0:08:11.797 now and mind-wandering a short time later. 0:08:11.797,0:08:14.119 In other words, mind-wandering very likely seems to be 0:08:14.119,0:08:19.959 an actual cause, and not merely a consequence, of unhappiness. 0:08:19.959,0:08:22.183 A few minutes ago, I likened mind-wandering 0:08:22.183,0:08:24.446 to a slot machine you'd never want to play. 0:08:24.446,0:08:26.750 Well, how often do people's minds wander? 0:08:26.750,0:08:31.207 Turns out, they wander a lot. In fact, really a lot. 0:08:31.207,0:08:33.901 Forty-seven percent of the time, people are thinking 0:08:33.901,0:08:37.308 about something other than what they're currently doing. 0:08:37.308,0:08:39.746 How does that depend on what people are doing? 0:08:39.746,0:08:42.499 This shows the rate of mind-wandering across 22 activities 0:08:42.499,0:08:46.498 ranging from a high of 65 percent — (Laughter) — 0:08:46.498,0:08:49.010 when people are taking a shower, brushing their teeth, 0:08:49.010,0:08:51.911 to 50 percent when they're working, 0:08:51.911,0:08:54.954 to 40 percent when they're exercising, 0:08:54.954,0:08:56.873 all the way down to this one short bar on the right 0:08:56.873,0:08:58.861 that I think some of you are probably laughing at. 0:08:58.861,0:09:01.251 Ten percent of the time people's minds are wandering 0:09:01.251,0:09:05.822 when they're having sex. (Laughter) 0:09:05.822,0:09:08.755 But there's something I think that's quite interesting in this graph, 0:09:08.755,0:09:11.803 and that is, basically with one exception, 0:09:11.803,0:09:13.981 no matter what people are doing, they're mind-wandering 0:09:13.981,0:09:17.659 at least 30 percent of the time, which suggests, I think, 0:09:17.659,0:09:20.490 that mind-wandering isn't just frequent, it's ubiquitous. 0:09:20.490,0:09:24.223 It pervades basically everything that we do. 0:09:24.223,0:09:27.419 In my talk today, I've told you a little bit about mind-wandering, 0:09:27.419,0:09:29.469 a variable that I think turns out to be fairly important 0:09:29.469,0:09:31.125 in the equation for happiness. 0:09:31.125,0:09:33.140 My hope is that over time, by tracking people's 0:09:33.140,0:09:36.188 moment-to-moment happiness and their experiences 0:09:36.188,0:09:39.590 in daily life, we'll be able to uncover a lot of important causes of happiness, 0:09:39.590,0:09:42.520 and then in the end, a scientific understanding of happiness 0:09:42.520,0:09:45.217 will help us create a future that's not only richer 0:09:45.217,0:09:48.079 and healthier, but happier as well. 0:09:48.079,0:09:51.303 Thank you. (Applause) 0:09:51.303,0:09:55.303 (Applause)