Translator: Nadine Hennig Reviewer: Denise RQ
As being said, you know, my name is Kai Ludwigs,
and I'm the director of the Happiness Research Organization.
Probably most of you don't know what that institute is.
It's an independent research institute based in Düsseldorf,
that it specializes in measuring people's happiness,
subjective well-being, and quality of life.
One of our projects is the "Happy Frankfurt" project
that we did together with the TEDxRheinMain community.
I don't to want to waste too much time.
I just wanted to introduce the study by video that we produced for the study.
(Video) Happiness, the ultimate goal of every individual.
But what is happiness? What makes us happy and what doesn't?
There are just as many variations of happiness
as there are people living on the planet.
Yes, happiness is subjective.
The factors that influence people's happiness
vary from person to person.
But, nevertheless, it is possible
to measure the happiness level of individuals and population groups.
Modern technology lets us zoom in on daily life, and helps us understand
how people live every day, and how they actually feel about it.
The data collected are displayed online in a community well-being atlas
providing insights on the happiness time use of people
in different communities.
Are there people that are significantly happier than others,
and what can we learn from them?
The Community Well-Being Atlas is the scientific basis
for developing a more humane policy that focuses on our long-term goal:
happier communities with people living healthier and more meaningful lives.
You want to share your experience
and contribute to making your city a better place to live?
You can do so by participating in our study for a happy Frankfurt.
www.happy-frankfurt.com
Happiness Research Organization -- Focus on happiness.
Kai Ludwigs: So this video, I hope,
gives a first insight into what we tried to do.
You also saw that it's part of a bigger project,
it's part of the Community Well-Being Atlas,
a project that we developed together with the Community Well-Being Institute
based in Seoul, Korea.
So we were just using their measurements for community well-being, and teamed up
to cooperate to just use our measurements for subjective well-being and happiness,
and for the happiness time use of people: how people live their everyday life
and how they perceive their everyday life in an emotional way.
Just by using modern technology,
we were also able to track locations and to build maps, city maps,
and to zoom into daily life, and see people's everyday life,
and everyday feelings, but also in which location that's maybe different.
This modern technology that we use is, in the end, a survey app.
That's something that we started to produce already three years ago
to be able to do a new way of surveys, just to zoom into daily life.
And we applied this app called "Happiness Analyser"
to a "Happy Frankfurt" app
that I'll just explain quickly in this screencast.
So people were just starting and just participating after downloading the app.
And from here on, they were first just doing surveys
but in a bit more modern way - a community well-being survey -
just grading different domains of a city life.
And on the other side, they were also doing
a subjective well-being questionnaire based on our city guidelines.
So then, they were just being asked to do a diary,
just defining different episodes of their previous day based on a method
from Nobel Prize Laureate Daniel Kahneman,
and just describe in their episodes
what they did, where they did it, and with whom they did it.
That's pretty easy.
(Laughter)
And so people were just doing this in the end for their whole day.
And just then being asked how happy they felt in these episodes -
just to try to reconstruct their day
and to try to decide how happy they felt in these episodes.
So that's then being displayed also in graphs.
But people, after this, that took them about 15 minutes,
were just being asked if they want to continue with this study
and just build their own happiness profile.
In the basic version, in which were six more diaries,
or like an exclusive version with six more diaries,
plus four experience sampling method notifications.
So that's like they were just being asked four times a day
in the moment, just how they feel right now, what they do,
where they do it, and with whom they do it.
So just as we had it before.
And all this data is, in the end, being displayed for the participants
just in a graphical way.
So they are able to produce more happiness awareness,
and just can get a feeling of what makes them happy
and what does not make them happy.
So like this, they first do something social,
so just for their city, and for the other inhabitants,
and then they can decide to do something for their own -
so just being intrinsically motivated to build their own happiness profile,
of course, for free.
We were just collecting data,
and then we would just now starting to collect data.
And that's now the first time
that I'm just going to present some of the first results.
We can say, in the community well-being questionnaire,
we could just see
that Frankfurt's citizens rate the city relatively high.
So they're quite OK with the city in general.
But they think it's pricey in the areas where they would prefer to live.
Nothing like too fancy to say.
On the other side, you see that on the subject of well-being questionnaire,
we also see Frankfurt's citizens are quite happy.
But they feel like they don't really have enough time
to do the things they really like.
And so that's especially, when you combine some data,
you see that it's true for really poor people,
that probably just need to work really hard to be able
to live in Frankfurt or around,
and for really rich people,
they are just maybe too focused on their career, on their job,
and just forget to really focus on things to do that they really like.
And based on this normal survey data,
we could just say for politicians in Frankfurt
they should just make sure that it's affordable
to live really a good life in Frankfurt.
And that's pretty easy to say.
And that's not really a new science, you just do a survey, and you collect it,
maybe with an app.
But now, we just try to make a bit more valid data -
data that is more easily to understand for normal people.
And so like this, we were just using this diary data,
to know how people use their time
and how happy they are during certain time use.
And we are able, working on just analyzing this data,
and just now going to publish their happiness profiles website,
where people can just go through different filters,
and being able, for example, to compare two different profiles.
So both are males, both are 30 years old.
The one is living inside the city,
the other one is living outside the city.
And so, we would see that's the one who's living inside the city
just needs to work a lot, because it's pricey.
So this person works from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. and does not have to commute,
but still does not have much time left to do the things
that this person really likes.
On the other side, somebody who's living outside of the city
maybe just works from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
but does have to commute like two hours per day,
and so also does not have that much more time to really do things
that this person really likes to do.
So kind of this is like an example of how we are just able
with this everyday life data just to show more valid data,
and show validity in normal surveys, and just try to make something
that politicians, but also inhabitants,
that is way easier for them to really understand.
On the other side, we can just use the location data
and just see here, try to make this also valid in a geographical way,
and just show this in a map,
and just see that here, for example, in Offenbach,
you see more like this profile that I explained for the person
that's outside of the city.
For example, more like in the center of Frankfurt,
you would see the other profile.
So that's just things that we are just going to publish,
and people are just going to be able to play around with this data
that they also, on a community way,
really get something for their participation.
As I said before, that is all part of a bigger project.
And so we are, right now, already applying this method in Seoul,
in Rotterdam, in Wuppertal, in Indianapolis, and in Phoenix,
and right now are planning way more studies for the next year
and the next few years, to be able to set up a new database
to make our world a happier place.
Thank you for your attention.
(Applause)