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TEDxBrighton
17 February 2011
TEDxBrighton 2011, 'Reasons to be cheerful'

Mapping happiness across space and time

also on YouTube (works on iPhone/iPad/iPod)

as seen on tv

16 October 2010
On BBC One, BBC News Channel and BBC World News

Click

mappiness features on Click, the BBC's flagship technology programme

see it on the BBC website (15.45 – 16.30)

13 October 2010
From Reuters

The app that maps happiness

2 September 2010
On CNN's Connect The World

App to map happiness

on the radio

24 September 2013
On BBC Radio

The Naked Scientists

Chris Smith interviews researcher George MacKerron on Mappiness and Citizen Science

listen online (Mappiness features from 47:12)

13 July 2013
On NPR

Wait Wait ... Don't Tell Me!

Panellists on NPR's quiz programme are unconvinced by findings from Mappiness on how unhappy people are when working

download the clip

10 June 2013
On BBC Radio 4

Analysis

Analysis explores the Quantified Self, including Mappiness, and asks if life can be measured

listen to the programme (Mappiness features at 11:57)

4 & 11 March 2013
On BBC Radio Sussex & Surrey

Happiness Day

A few days ahead of the UN's International Day of Happiness on 20 March, BBC Radio Sussex & Surrey held their own, telling the news from a positive angle. Neil Pringle talked to George MacKerron about early Mappiness results.

1 December 2011
On ABC Radio National

Future Tense

Researcher George MacKerron describes mappiness to Antony Funnell on Australian radio

listen to the interview (16.30 – 21.30) or read the transcript

11 April 2011
On BBC Radio 4

Click On

George MacKerron discusses the mappiness project with Simon Cox

listen to the interview (23.34 – 28.46)

5 April 2011
On NPR

Marketplace Morning Report

"Happiness is just a smartphone app away" with David Brancaccio

listen to the interview or see the transcript

20 October 2010
On News/Talk WJR 760am

The Paul W Smith Show

"There's an app for that": Paul W speaks to researcher George MacKerron

listen to the interview

11 October 2010
On BBC Radio 2

Simon Mayo Drivetime

Lead researcher George MacKerron talks to Rebecca Pike about mappiness' preliminary findings

hear it via BBC iPlayer until 17 Oct 2010 (1:35.20 – 1:37.58)

11 October 2010
On BBC Radio 5 live

5 Live Drive

mappiness researcher George MacKerron discusses the happiest days of the week with 5 Live Drive's Peter Allen

hear it via BBC iPlayer until 17 Oct 2010 (26.50 – 29.10)

11 October 2010
On the BBC World Service

Newshour

Is Tuesday the new Monday? James Coomarasamy quizzes mappiness researcher George MacKerron

hear it via BBC iPlayer (50.00 – 53.00)

2010 & 2011
On BBC local radio

Drivetime and breakfast shows

mappiness has also featured on BBC local radio in Scotland, the West Midlands, Berkshire, Kent, Lancashire, Solent and Sussex

in the press

30 June 2013
In The Sunday Times

Our work hang-ups exposed by app

Using data collected from tens of thousands of smartphone users who logged their levels of wellbeing via an app, researchers for the London School of Economics (LSE) found paid work ranked lower than any other activity except being ill in bed. Working led to a 5% drop in happiness, relative to other activities, and sickness to a 20% drop.

read more in The Sunday Times (paywalled)

16 May 2012
In The Times

An ingenious barometer of weather and happiness

Scientists have found out that experiencing bad weather is about as unpleasant as having to do the washing up.

read more in The Times (paywalled)

20 April 2012
In Wired

Mappiness app finds coasts are the most pleasing places

A massive, crowdsourced survey of happiness has shown that a person's mood is strongly associated with the type of terrain around them.

read more in Wired

6 November 2011
In the Sunday Times

App pinpoints our 'appiest moment

The Sunday Times reports on the UK's happiest times and activities.

read more in the Sunday Times (paywalled)

31 October 2011
In the Guardian G2

Confessions of a happychondriac

What happened when somebody created an app that you could tell when and where you were happy and unhappy?

read more in the Guardian

28 July 2011
In the Times Higher Education

The research lab in your pocket: apps and the academy

Apps created by and for the academy could turn smartphones into essential academic tools for everything from teaching and citations to social-science fieldwork

read more in the Times Higher Education

23 April 2011
In the Wall Street Journal

The Really Smart Phone

Researchers are harvesting a wealth of intimate detail from our cellphone data, uncovering the hidden patterns of our social lives

read more in the Wall Street Journal

13 February 2011
In the Observer

George MacKerron: 'I can measure how happy you are – and why'

George MacKerron is the inventor of Mappiness, an iPhone app that collates information from thousands of people to find out when, where and why we are at our happiest

read more in the Observer

12 February 2011
In the Vancouver Sun

How the smart phone can help you do the right thing

Good sustainability decisions are so much each easier to make because of emerging connectivity media

read more in the Vancouver Sun

12 October 2010
On the front page of Le Figaro!

Le mardi est déprimant, foi de Britanniques (Tuesday is depressing, say British)

Le lundi, en dépit de sa sinistre réputation, ne serait pas le jour le plus haïssable de la semaine. À en croire des chercheurs de la London School of Economics (LSE), c'est plutôt aux mardis qu'une majorité de la population brittanique réserverait ses humeurs les plus sombres.

see the story (in French) in Le Figaro

12 October 2010
In the Daily Mail

Forget manic Monday, terrible Tuesday is really the most depressing day of the week

If you woke up this morning thinking the toughest day of the week had been and gone, you were wrong. Mondays may have long been thought of as miserable, but we’re more likely to feel down in the dumps on a Tuesday.

read more in the Daily Mail

11 October 2010
In the Telegraph

Mondays less miserable than Tuesdays, research finds

Bob Geldof famously sang about his dislike of Mondays, but it appears that most people find Tuesday the most miserable day of the week.

read more in the Telegraph

11 October 2010
In the Daily Mail

Tuesday is the day we hate most and Slough makes people miserable

When Bob Geldof wrote his hit song I Don't Like Mondays, it became an anthem for every office worker who enjoy their fun-filled weekends and hate the beginning of the week and back to the daily grind. Now a survey using smartphone technology has revealed that Tuesday and not Monday is the day most people feel miserable.

read more in the Daily Mail

10 October 2010
In the Sunday Times

Get the app, join the happy map

An experiment by the London School of Economics has charted the "emotional index" of the nation, as volunteers keep a track of their emotional states using smartphone technology.

read more in the Sunday Times (paywalled)

2 October 2010
In the Independent

The 50 best apps

mappiness makes the Independent's top ten in this round-up of the best iPhone apps.

see it in the Independent

17 August 2010
From Mary Ormsby in the Toronto Star

Happy? Touch this.

Remember when Lucy hugged Snoopy and happiness was a warm puppy? Now, that feel-good state is defined by data bouncing off satellites.

read more in the Toronto Star

16 August 2010
In the Telegraph

Apple iPhone to 'map happiness'

Mappiness officially launches today, and aims to help researchers understand how people's feelings are affected by their immediate environment. Pollution, noise, weather conditions and green space will be among the factors that data will be compared against.

read more in the Telegraph

16 August 2010
On Mark Prigg's Evening Standard blog

Tracking Britain's happiness via mobile phones

Researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science have launched a new iPhone app designed to track how happy the UK is.

read more in the Evening Standard

15 August 2010
In the Independent on Sunday

The secret of happiness: Family, friends and your environment

In an attempt to better understand how people's feelings are affected by their immediate environment researchers from the London School of Economics will tomorrow launch a "mappiness" project, which aims to track British happiness. Using a free iPhone app, researchers will ask users how they feel at regular intervals, using GPS to pinpoint their location.

read more in the Independent

and elsewhere

29 August 2013
On YouBeauty

How to Get Happy: Climb a Tree

Attaining in-the-moment happiness courtesy of Mother Nature is a surefire mood-booster—and doesn’t require venturing into the wilderness.

read more on YouBeauty

20 February 2013
Chris Dillow / Stumbling & Mumbling

Happiness, work & productivity

… a great new paper by Alex Bryson and George MacKerron shows how even well-paid workers are unhappy whilst they're working.

read the post

27 October 2011
Ben Moss on Cary Cooper's blog

'Mappiness' points the way for the government's Happiness Index

… it seems clear to me that 'state-of-the-art' apps like Mappiness point the way to the future of the government's attempts to measure happiness, and more importantly figure it into its policy and decision-making.

read more on Cary Cooper's blog

1 June 2011
From the Innovation Unit blog

Mappiness: transforming wellbeing research one chirp at a time

Mappiness has the potential to lend an enormous amount of weight to the arguments of those who want to design buildings and cities in ways which improve, rather than detract from, our wellbeing. For a small, friendly program that runs on a mobile phone, that's pretty impressive.

read more on the Innovation Unit blog

19 January 2011
From Oran Parker's blog

Just how happy are you? "Mappiness" can help you find the answer

What makes this app ultimately work for me is that it's not heavy. It's easy to set up, and easy to use. Also, it's being used for a positive purpose, and helps remind me to constantly ask, "Oran, are you happy?"

read more on Oran's blog

18 November 2010
On the 'healthier, happier, more productive' blog

Mappiness

Happiness research may seem easy to criticise. How can we get reliable data? Will participants answer honestly in a survey? If they are filling the survey at school or work how does that environment affect their feelings and answers? … Some of these problems might just have been solved by combining smart-phones and surveys.

read more at 'healthier, happier, more productive'

1 September 2010
At Vervacious

On mappiness and happiness

If you haven’t caught up with it yet, it’s what can only be described as serious fun: an attempt to map different daily levels of happiness linked by iPhone satnav to where you are on the UK map.

read more at Vervacious

23 August 2010
At discovery.com's Planet Green

Mappiness iPhone App Pinpoints Happy Places

It's commonly thought that if we're happy, we make those around us happier too; conversely, if those around us are happy, we feel happier along with them. So what if you could stake out where the happiest places are located and go there -- or let people know where we're happiest so they can join in? UK researchers are hoping to uncover environmental factors in what makes people happy, and are using one of the most handy tools available -- iPhones.

read more at Planet Green

18 August 2010
At Fast Company

Mappiness iPhone App Measures Happiness in the UK

A pair of researchers from the London School of Economics' Department of Geography & Environment are measuring happiness throughout the UK. And to do it, they've created an iPhone app called Mappiness.

read more at Fast Company

18 August 2010
From Parmy Olson at Forbes

Dr. iPhone’s Happiness App

PhD students are smart, but George MacKerron is in a class of his own. As part of the final year of his research at the London School of Economics, MacKerron, 31, has found a novel way of collecting data for his doctorate: an iPhone application.

read more at Forbes

16 August 2010
On TechCrunch

Mappiness iPhone App Maps Happiness (Say That Three Times Fast)

Officially launching today is Mappiness, a UK iPhone app that "maps Happiness" by pinging users with a survey in order to plot out their feelings during the day.

read more on TechCrunch

13 August 2010
Richard Layard

"A revolutionary research idea"

Professor Lord Richard Layard, Director of the Well-being Programme at LSE's Centre for Economic Performance, says:

Mappiness is a revolutionary research idea. It is the best method so far devised for understanding how people's emotions are affected by the buildings and natural environment in which they move.

10 August 2010
On the nef blog

Real-time happiness data launched for the UK

Having downloaded the app a few days ago I can report that responding is more fun and less onerous than it might sound – and the personal stats it generates provides a really interesting insight in to when and how my mood has been changing.

read more on the nef blog

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