Appearances vs. Experiences: What Makes Us Happy
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To expand on the article. One thing I've noticed is that a lot of people in my age group (18-24 years old) are desperately trying to find happiness in "experiences" but finding emptiness due to social media. Often for them, it is not achieving something amazing like a long bicycle trip, or summiting a mountain that brings them joy, but they are thinking about the resulting Instagram photos instead.
Communication tools like Snapchat are a little bit healthier. Most people use Snapchat not to show off, but rather to regularly share their lives with a small group of friends.
Certain social media platforms like Instagram or TikTok seem entirely designed to try to get their users to pursue building a following and attach their happiness to that. Some unfortunate people end up having all the joy of traveling and meeting new people robbed from them as a result. They know that "experiences" are better for happiness than possessions, but somehow the result is a bastardized version the actual experience.
Knowing all of this, I am not taking a holier-than-thou position. I myself have accounts on several social media platforms, but make a conscious effort to not get drawn into their dopamine manipulating designs.
I'm in the same age group and this is what I don't get. If you're enjoying your experience so much, why the hell are you trying so hard to create content for social media? Just sit back and relax.
I think the biggest thing for people our age (And probably a bit older as well) is that they lack purpose. Social media is so popular because it's instant gratification, and a great way to attempt to fill that void.
Do you have any good purposes? I already have several good ones applicable only to me, but what would a generally applicable one look like?
That's it for now, nice and simple. I think the community part is pretty generally applicable.
A just-over-minimum wage job isn't really having a positive impact on the community and even if it did, you aren't treated like it does.
Because many also enjoy the experience of being admired or envied by others, perhaps even more than the original experience itself. The original experience might even be "the necessary evil"* to get the appearance. Anything that can turn into an exhilarating "high" given by the appreciation of your followers. Like any high you have to chase bigger and bigger experiences to get the satisfaction.
Those moments pay off whether they're pleasure or pain because they all translate into literally days (/s) of appreciation from your followers plus a story to throw at the dinner table once in a while for another light dose of the drug. I think it's not really about lacking a purpose. Just perhaps that the purpose doesn't give them the same or enough satisfaction. Like any other "drug", you don't need to lack purpose to take it. After all being admired can be a purpose in itself.
And this by no means applies only to social media. People buy expensive watches, or cars, or houses where the maintenance cost itself reminds them every time of the downsides but other people's admiration more than makes up for it.
* the popular Everest base camp hikes, marathons, and others. Things most people don't necessarily enjoy yet a disproportionate number of them advertise them on social media.
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> I have many acquaintances who go to great lengths and expenses for an experience they don't particularly enjoy but which pays off on social media
That's my whole point. No wonder people are unhappy when they rely on external things for happiness and fulfillment. It's peak stupidity.
I don't believe what you're describing is sustainable long term.
I think Jim Carrey said it best: "I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it's not the answer."
I'm describing things that have been happening for millennia: people seeking the admiration of others even at great cost for themselves. Social media is the last manifestation, in line with modern times. It's still the same drug just obtained via different means.
I don't know how sustainable it is, if social media puts us above the sustainability threshold by making this practice more accessible to the masses. But as the article states people have put up with a lot of permanent downsides (e.g. a long uncomfortable daily commute) for the fleeting joy of the upside (e.g. having a bigger bedroom).
On the other hand social media allows people to get that satisfaction with a one time investment. One fancy trip = one big dose of admiration from thousands of people. Your grandparents had to take a mortgage to get this effect. Entire industries were created purely to satisfy such needs, anything containing "luxury" is a good point to start. Of course there are many other implications here but while we can agree it's probably not good that so many rely on this for their daily life happiness, it's hard to quantify how bad.
Anecdotally the worst outcome I've seen from social media induced disillusionment was couples falling apart because the more immature one lived "inside" social media and real life didn't provide any of the same highs. The disappointment took a sledgehammer to what was probably a shaky foundation but still.
From the article: "The problem is, we consistently make decisions that suggest we are not so good at distinguishing between ephemeral and lasting pleasures. We keep getting it wrong".
I believe social media massively exacerbates this phenomenon rather than making it sustainable.
> Of course there are many other implications here but while we can agree it's probably not good that so many rely on this for their daily life happiness, it's hard to quantify how bad
It's a slippery slope to me. If you don't eliminate the need for external validation it snowballs, just like an addiction.
Note that I'm not saying external validation is inherently bad, but relying on it is. We all like getting praise and compliments, but relying on them to prop ourselves up is a recipe for disaster.
Focusing on the “rich” part here.
Money can help a lot. I’ve been in positions in life with and without excess money. I wasn’t happy in either situation, but the lack of extra money is far worse.
I know many people feel pride in working for money, but I find that lacking as much as going for experiences for social media clout. I enjoy working, but having to work for 40 years on assigned work in order to have a home, healthy food, et al, is not the answer.
Of course marketers play on these insecurities in rather insidious ways. They will make you believe you can't be a good father without owning a new SUV, that buying a house in the country is going to make you sexually attractive to the opposite sex and on and on.
I create content because it preserves memories and/or more than pays for the experience, enabling more trips. I travel, take photos and videos, and then sell media afterwards. Just like other people watch TV or movies, I enjoy editing photos or putting little movies together from footage I've shot while having a glass of wine.
Last year, on a particularly large trip, I took a lot of video to document it: https://shubbo.com/us/ - now I wish I'd taken more. I love looking back over it and reminiscing, as does my family.
Sometimes I feel like you can create content or consume it. I enjoy both.
I also completely understand someone who enjoys something like photography or filmmaking taking the time to document their experiences.
However, I doubt most people who post on social media fall into either of the above categories.
I'm a bit socially inept, so if I'm at a gathering and know (from Instagram) someone outside my immediate circle that I'm talking to has recently holidayed with their kids or got a pet or whatever, it's a big help prompting conversation.
For me, appearances and experiences are part and parcel. Let's say I like going on adventures and that I like people to think of me as adventurous. And so being adventurous to demonstrate that I'm adventurous is self-serving. Gets me off the couch in those moments I need a little push.
What I find most troubling is that a lot of people in my age group know the detrimental effect social media has on them. They’ll knowingly waste a couple of hours everyday. And, anybody who tries to pull away from it is ridiculed for “trying to appear superior” or mocked for apparently subscribing to “back to nature” ideology. This makes it even harder to leave; it delayed my own escape by at least 1 year.
What makes it downright frightening to me is that we as a collective have several enormously difficult problems that we must solve. Information floods the brain and drowns out thoughts that should be had daily like “the past 5 years have been the hottest ever recorded.” Politics is another area that scares me. People my age are upset with the government. Yet, most could not write more than 5 tweets about why. They’ll claim the opposition has been lead astray by questionable news sources on social media sites while simultaneously participating in exactly that trap themselves.
Quick and cheap ideas became a source of easy gratification. Generations raised in such an environment are probably not prepared to face the challenge of a world sliding - admittedly slowly - towards disaster.
In theory, there are people for whom it is completely organic. Their life is charmed and they have a natural eye for photography. So with a few lazy snaps for grins, they create a compelling feed. They aren't trying hard!
That's what everyone else is trying to ape. The effortless cool.
It's basically an MMORPG, but you're playing as an invented version of yourself.
When I travel, I take lots of pictures and write travelogues about the culture of the place, and about the unusual things that might surprise me or my friends on social media. I also often try to engage with people in the local language (I usually start cramming with spaced-rep apps 2 weeks before the trip), so it's a linguistic journey as well -- I write about conversations too (that said, Basque was very difficult and nobody cared that I tried to speak it. No luck engaging in Catalan either, most folks just switched to English. But Korean was helpful in Korea, as was Portuguese in northern Portugal).
The pictures I take are not of umbrella drinks or beaches, but of local people doing their thing. I take pictures of subways and the little details that reveal the systems-thinking behind the subway system (which differs all over the world). I take pictures of pieces of technology that are localized to the domestic culture and reveal the way people interact with physical objects (Japan had so many gems). I almost always go on a walking tour so I also get to document the history that I learn along the way -- seeing physical spaces are great, but with a walking tour you also get the time dimension through storytelling.
My social media posts are an invitation to my friends to see a world that they've not seen. I often travel alone, so writing about my experiences and explorations helps me feel like I'm sharing those experiences with my peeps back home. It also helps me feel less lonely -- yes, one makes friends on walking tours but those are fleeting and you never ever see them again. The most gratifying interactions on social media aren't the likes but the comments that start with "what's that?".
Telling stories on social media also helps hone your storytelling skills. I once took a course in flash fiction (i.e. really short fiction) writing which was nice and all, but the real test of flash writing is in telling stories on social media where you have to get and keep people's attention with words and pictures within the constraints of a single post.
It really depends how you do social media. Done right, it can be extremely gratifying and can elevate the experience of travel.
(there's nothing wrong with the performative aspects of social media if you know what you're doing. Take Anthony Bourdain -- sure, he was making a TV show (trying to get the TV equivalent likes as it were) but he also portrayed cultures with an artistic sensitivity that none of the other chefs had. Gordon Ramsey for instance goes to a country to show the locals how he can cook better than them...)
It's just people who know me and who are amused by my posts.
One example that I found interesting in India is that people want to travel to religious places out of a sense of duty for their peers. I think to some extent social media works the same. You feel the need to share your life with your peer group because they do for you.
Yeah, not surprised. Talked to a neuroeconomic PHD friend once, and he said social media FB definitely putting in a lot money in R&D to make their product as additive as possible.
I don't think the same fate is in store for Zuck. I believe history will judge him harshly. Mostly because he's damaging children more than anyone else.
This reflects my experience. When you have an audience, you have a certain pressure to perform. You subconsciously start framing everything in terms of potential likes. Having fun isn't enough, you have to prove it. Checking in can easily become more important than being there.
I don't post much anymore. My profiles are all private. I do not turn moments into content. I just try to enjoy being there. It certainly improved my experience.
My solution was to basically completely stop posting publicly. I still take lots of photos on trips, because I enjoy photography too, and want to save the photos, but I am doing it for myself. There's no pressure of other people liking it since apart from my close family, no one will get to see them [1]. And as a result, my photographs have organically skewed towards capturing more faces and natural expressions, and not just landmarks.
[1] From a tooling perspective, Google Photos private albums are awesome for my use case.
I find myself posting less and less on social media and enjoying my own work in that context more and more. It has also led to an improvement in my own work just from the amount of time I spend looking at photo books and thinking about how they're built, sequencing, ties between disparate photographs, etc.
If you aren't printing your work now I highly recommend getting a good printer and making some large displays of your favorites for your home. Next time you have people over they'll be asking for prints.
At least these days people that way inclined can get all the fun of showing off their photos without actually holding anyone hostage on a sofa.
I don't. I hate working from home.
When my apartment is all I have to run away from life, adjusting it to be a working space just totally wrecks my personal psyche. Sure a laptop can be turned off but knowing the desk I use for general is now my work desk ruins the whole environment for me.
At least from the Office I could come home and know it was personal. Everything work related is in the office and everything home is personal.
I derive a great deal of happiness from nice things. I suspect I’m not alone, and that people like me are the reason that the whole human environment isn’t just a pile of half-arsed crap designed to facilitate only certain types of approved experiences. We notice the qualities of the things around us every single moment of the day, and they can bring us great joy (or the opposite).
Materialism is clearly not in vogue (and I suspect there is a moral dimension to this), but for some people it will make them far happier than trying to chase experiences. I suspect there are many natural materialists out there struggling to conform to the new societal norm that only the ephemeral can lead to psychological salvation, and that all desire for material riches is a sin.
To use the article’s example of living in a city versus a suburb: If you can get a house in a suburb and can commute 15 minutes or so and are within walking distance of the stuff you care about (including your friends/family) and don’t value any of the perks of living in a city environment (or heavily dislike the downsides), then go for it. But a big house in the suburbs _alone_ isn’t automatically going to make your life better, yet in my experience that’s a very dominant mode of thinking.
For some people, nice things can actually affect their life experience, while some "experiences" (as in activities) feel rather meaningless. I think the point is that you should aim to pursue whatever positively affects how you experience your life and not what looks good on the surface only, regardless of whether the entity under consideration is a material thing or an immaterial activity.
What a lot of well-designed "nice things" achieve is not just surface level beauty, but actually working well and "feeling right".
I agree. Being a coin collector and engaging with the coin collection community can be as or more meaningful as a holiday
Like the very nice in the suburbs with the huge garden won’t bring you much joy if you always come home after dark and never have time to play with the kids outside our having friends over because your commute and the need to work long hours to afford it.
On the other hand, it brings me great joy just strolling around the garden watching everything growing or picking raspberries with my 3 year old son. So of course, in a sense, the house and the garden brings me joy.
Or take another example. I have a nice $300 fountain pen. It brings me a little bit of joy every time I pick it up to write with it, just because the nib has the right amount of flex and it balances so well in my hand, the surface is soft but not slippery, etc. And I make sure that I have reason to use it for note taking and journaling, because it wouldn’t make me happy with dried ink in a drawer, or just looking nice in a stand on the top of my desk.
So, it’s not that things are unimportant. Not at all. But I think we need to think about how they bring us happiness, because it is not the ownership in itself. (Then I’m certain that there is a class of people who thrives from a warm cozy feeling of just staring at a bank statement with a large positive amount.)
imo you get joy from being happy with what you have (whatever it is, in your case it is a house and a garden, for others it is a mansion and for others a tiny flat)
Instead it is about actual common lived experiences. Like going to work, going to the store, going to do some sport. The things you do often. These things affect you and your life very much. But, according to the article, we don't put enough priority on these things.
This can be counteracted through philosophy like stoicism or contemplative practices like meditation. If we analyze our wants and needs, if we learn to love basic goods, we can achieve happiness with what we already have right now.
This. All this 'experiences over things' is a false dichotomy and ends up falling into the trap it was supposed to warn about. Chasing experiences can have the same banality that chasing goods is associated with. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Being happy with your current state is key. No amount of experiences or things by themselves will lead you to happiness imo. Say enough to a new device, a new car, a new exotic holiday destination, a new once-in-a-lifetime experience that costs more than you monthly salary. Say yes, to the things you have now and learn to enjoy without wanting more. Easier said than done ofc
And for what it's worth, even though I'm all in on experiences for now, I absolutely think that well curated possessions can bring lasting enjoyment. I'm not currently in a position to possess much, but could certainly see myself pivoting to possessions if I had a future opportunity.
While there might be a vocal minority here (and elsewhere) that scoff at material wealth, its pretty clear that society at large still measures status by your possessions.
People still seek out more luxurious cars, more gadgets, new fashions year after year without fail; evidenced by the unstoppable growth in those industries.
Even if people might say that material riches are a 'sin', they certainly are not behaving as such.
You can sell a product only once to a customer, until they use it up (which is why products are getting so fragile). But experiences are fleeting, so if you sell or gatekeep some good ones, you can expect a steady stream of repeat customers.
I am lucky to have both options at my disposal - I live in the city, commute to work (~45 minutes by tram, more if I walk, which I do). On the other hand, my parents live in the suburbs, backyard and stuff.
Both options have advantages.
During the lockdown, apartment was fine, but claustrophobic a little bit. Not many things to do. In the house, you don't even notice it. Especially now, during the summer, garden, fruits, vegetables, swimming pool.
On the other hand, living in the city offers more options, like socialising, finding things to do, people with similar interests, training, learning classes for whatever, etc.
Both options offer experiences. They talk about an experience of commuting ruining everything. But what about an experience of enjoying personal swimming pool? Eating stuff from your own garden? Kids running around happy, having a tree house versus being limited to the apartment?
As I said at the beginning - there's no silver bullet. It's about finding out what you like, what works for you, and then act accordingly (if possible).
some sources say that people in cities are less happy than those in smaller cities or rural areas.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2018/05/17/peopl...
Others say different: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-29/u-s-mille...
and then further bloomberg articles say the opposite. This is why I was particularly disappointed with their last point. Or is what it is saying is that once you take away the commute, cities loose handily in happiness?
Me, my wife, and our two kids recently moved.
Previously we lived in a large house that looked “special” — old but in good shape. Lots of wood and 4m ceilings. That was a rented place.
By chance we found a house smaller and not special at all — a mass-produced townhouse, basically — that we were able to afford buying. For a few us-specific reasons we really wanted to buy a house instead of rent it, so we went ahead.
I was a bit scared that it would be a let-down. A downgrade. The house would be less special. I would feel less special. I was certain I would regret it, but it made sense for the family.
The opposite happened. It’s a much nicer experience. The house feels more cozy and more modern. The kids have suddenly lost all problems sleeping in their rooms by themselves. They go play in their rooms. They never did that in the previous house. And being a townhouse, there’s a bunch of similar families around — suddenly the kids have friends.
I work remotely so there’s not a huge difference work-wise. But I’m much happier and more relaxed knowing the kids are happier and more relaxed.
"Owning" it makes a difference in so far as that I can now be absolutely certain that no issue will be handled by the landlord because there isn't one. Definitely increases my perceived agency.
The kids are 6 and 9. I think they just feel more comfortable in the more compact living space.
I wish there is a word to distinguish commute in a car and commute in public transport. The first one is clearly a waste of time. Depending on the person you ask, commuting by public transport can mean : reading a book, learning a new language, watching a series, reading the news, writing a book, ...
I'm someone who cherishes a little piece of solitude every day. I'd be much happier self sufficiently making my way to my place of work in the nice private bubble of a car (even if that means crawling at 3mph in traffic), listening to whatever music or podcast I enjoy, or just being able to think without many distractions, than having to jostle my way on public transport with no privacy or personal space.
(disclaimer: I cycle to work, not drive, though I'd rather walk the 3hrs it would take me than the hour on tube and/or busses)
It was a lot of time. However it didnt feel completely wasted. However, now i'm biking in 25m to work. And its a joy. I'm missing it now we're working from home.
The example of sacrificing a short commute for a bigger house in the suburbs isn't so clear if people that you care about also live in the suburbs, or the house allows you experiences that you couldn't otherwise have - building things in a workshop, raising a large family, etc.
For me, I so heavily despise the experience of being in a car for even half an hour. So unless I find a neighborhood where everything is nearby or maybe I can bike everywhere (not so easy in the US!) none of these supposed quality-of-life improvements will outweigh the downside for me.
(And yes, I have owned a car and used it for day-to-day stuff. I universally hated every single moment I sat in that car.)
[0] Runs a business which loses $200-$300 per month and works only 2-3 hours a day. So sort of retired.
[1] I'm not encouraging keeping animals, endangered or not, as pets or in cages.
This is my exact experience. I've always enjoyed pottering about as a form of mindfulness. I made it part of my daily routine during Lockdown. The garden is large which increases the amount of pottering available.
In the words of the Zen masters: "Before enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood. After enlightenment, fetch water, chop wood". Although for me 'fetch water' = 'pull weeds'.
I can directly relate to this. I went from spending ~2.5 hours/day on the train to a 15 minute walk about five years ago.
It is hard to overstate how much it changed my life for the better.
not sure if this falls under appearances, but i've also found that spending a more on the "quality" of your home or items (not size) also makes a noticeable diff. having amenities that are important to you, say... a gym, doorman or package delivery stuff, "new" appliances did a lot more for me than i expected. only when i moved to a cheaper place at the expense of those things did those annoyances crop up.
i think in general this has led me over the years to buy less stuff, but spend more on quality or aesthetics or what not, even how it makes you feel. most likely placebo, but you tend to take better care and pride of things you feel you've "invested" more in. i don't throw around my clothes or shoes. i dealt with a no frills corded hoover i had since college and hated vacuuming, then decided to get a cordless dyson cordless and now it's a "joy" to clean on the weekends or randomly lol. dumb example, but you get the point.
Living in downtown Palo Alto probably costs 100% more than living in Pleasanton, which is roughly a one hour commute.
> While a bigger garden and spare bedroom soon cease to be novel, every day’s commute is a little bit different, meaning we can never get quite used to it.
I wonder if this is one of the reasons big tech companies run buses — to make the commute less painful and blend into the background of life.
As I understand, there’s heavy resistance to building any sort of density in Palo Alto. That will, of course, skew the cost of living. I believe that people are constantly priced out of the city as well (i.e. they wanted to stay but couldn’t).
> I wonder if this is one of the reasons big tech companies run buses — to make the commute less painful and blend into the background of life.
The American perception toward public transit is that it is unreliable, crowded, dirty and/or filled with poor people. Knowing that there will be a seat on a clean bus to take you home without much worry is a major sell and can convince people to ditch their cars (whether or not the equivalent public transit commute actually matches the above perception).
When I was in a situation where I could take the “tech buses” regularly, they for sure helped make a long commute bearable.
If you spend 10% of your post tax income on rent, you only need a 10% increase in post-tax income to cancel out a 100% increase in rent.
But is it really true that house size is the reason people commute? My family members commute in order to live in a neighborhood and city they desire, yet live in a small apartment. There are reasons to desire suburbs other than house size, like gardens, parks, safety, silence, etc. And people also commute from a city to the suburbs/office parks, as many tech workers in San Francisco do.
If you were living in inner-city Melbourne (Australia) - you are close to gardens and parks, and it's one of the safest parts of town. The well-built buildings are quiet to be in (unfortunately there's now many more poorly-built ones which are noisy and too hot/cold).
Move the work and the services to the suburbs.
For most of human history we worked where we lived. That changed only very recently, and the artificial bifurcation needs to be reversed - particularly now we have the technology to do it, without sacrificing any necessary economies of scale
With that, "Appearances vs. Experiences" becomes more of a false dichotomy, an argument that privileges certain experiences over others, which is fine, but possibly less effective.
In the end, it's at least possible that the tourists that only took a photo have derived as much personal pleasure and satisfaction as those who invested more time into activities such as hiking, depending on their personalities, interests, and intentions.
If only there were a way to pass the real feeling / understanding to someone else so that we wouldn't all have to bang our heads against the wall and find out for ourselves...
I suspect confirmation bias leads researchers to find proof of their initial hypothesis without ruling out other explanations.