Getting Snappy Makes You Happy

Looking through photo albums makes you happier than chocolate, music, TV or even your favourite tipple, according to research revealed today by Orange.

The results show that the mood of those viewing photographs was consistently lifted by 11% during mood measuring tests whilst the groups who tried to eat, listen, watch, or drink their way to happiness registered a mere 1% increase.

The study, carried out for Orange by Peter Naish, Doctor of Psychology at The Open University compared the moods of people using four typical cheer-up treats with those browsing their favourite snaps.

The tests demonstrate that looking through personal photo albums produces an improvement across all measurements including a person’s sense of relaxation, brightness, calmness and alertness and even their sense of being valued and popular – resulting in a higher happiness score overall.

In contrast, the pick-me-ups people commonly rely on were only successful in helping them relax: Wine by 14%, chocolate by 8%. Photo albums were proven to be a far more effective way of unwinding, with subjects recording an average relaxation score of 22% – substantially higher. So before reaching for the bottle after a hard day consider that apart from relaxation, wine and chocolate offer little additional benefits. In fact, the wine drinkers actually rated themselves as feeling 6% less satisfied after their drink. Only those that flicked through photographs showed a consistent positive shift across all measures of mood.

This research was released to promote their new photo service so I wouldn’t cancel that therapy appointment just yet, ha, but I do agree with the findings. For a really nice relaxing browse through Flickr I recommend the Slickr Screensaver.

In fact as well as looking through photographs I find taking them quite relaxing too. Well, when things are going well, heh.