Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity.
Physical activity, both exercise and non-exercise, has far-reaching benefits to physical health. Although exercise has also been linked to psychological health (e.g., happiness), little research has examined physical activity more broadly, taking into account non-exercise activity as well as exercis...
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doaj-fe3df06431814c4bb62f9469f5262c2e2020-11-24T22:08:51ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032017-01-01121e016058910.1371/journal.pone.0160589Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity.Neal LathiaGillian M SandstromCecilia MascoloPeter J RentfrowPhysical activity, both exercise and non-exercise, has far-reaching benefits to physical health. Although exercise has also been linked to psychological health (e.g., happiness), little research has examined physical activity more broadly, taking into account non-exercise activity as well as exercise. We examined the relationship between physical activity (measured broadly) and happiness using a smartphone application. This app has collected self-reports of happiness and physical activity from over ten thousand participants, while passively gathering information about physical activity from the accelerometers on users' phones. The findings reveal that individuals who are more physically active are happier. Further, individuals are happier in the moments when they are more physically active. These results emerged when assessing activity subjectively, via self-report, or objectively, via participants' smartphone accelerometers. Overall, this research suggests that not only exercise but also non-exercise physical activity is related to happiness. This research further demonstrates how smartphones can be used to collect large-scale data to examine psychological, behavioral, and health-related phenomena as they naturally occur in everyday life.http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5213770?pdf=render |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Neal Lathia Gillian M Sandstrom Cecilia Mascolo Peter J Rentfrow |
spellingShingle |
Neal Lathia Gillian M Sandstrom Cecilia Mascolo Peter J Rentfrow Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity. PLoS ONE |
author_facet |
Neal Lathia Gillian M Sandstrom Cecilia Mascolo Peter J Rentfrow |
author_sort |
Neal Lathia |
title |
Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity. |
title_short |
Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity. |
title_full |
Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity. |
title_fullStr |
Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity. |
title_full_unstemmed |
Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity. |
title_sort |
happier people live more active lives: using smartphones to link happiness and physical activity. |
publisher |
Public Library of Science (PLoS) |
series |
PLoS ONE |
issn |
1932-6203 |
publishDate |
2017-01-01 |
description |
Physical activity, both exercise and non-exercise, has far-reaching benefits to physical health. Although exercise has also been linked to psychological health (e.g., happiness), little research has examined physical activity more broadly, taking into account non-exercise activity as well as exercise. We examined the relationship between physical activity (measured broadly) and happiness using a smartphone application. This app has collected self-reports of happiness and physical activity from over ten thousand participants, while passively gathering information about physical activity from the accelerometers on users' phones. The findings reveal that individuals who are more physically active are happier. Further, individuals are happier in the moments when they are more physically active. These results emerged when assessing activity subjectively, via self-report, or objectively, via participants' smartphone accelerometers. Overall, this research suggests that not only exercise but also non-exercise physical activity is related to happiness. This research further demonstrates how smartphones can be used to collect large-scale data to examine psychological, behavioral, and health-related phenomena as they naturally occur in everyday life. |
url |
http://europepmc.org/articles/PMC5213770?pdf=render |
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