crowd, which tends to be young, employed and educated). It’s where
you are. As one of MacKerron’s papers concludes: “On average, study
participants are significantly and substantially happier outdoors in all
green or natural habitat types than they are in urban environments.”
(And, in case you’re wondering, the data didn’t just reflect a vacation
effect, since he factored that in.)
The difference in joy respondents felt in urban versus natural
settings (especially coastal environments) was greater than the
difference they experienced from being alone versus being with
friends, and about the same as doing favored activities like singing
and sports versus not doing those things. Yet, remarkably, the
respondents, like me, were rarely caught outside. Ninety-three percent
of the time, they were either indoors or in vehicles. And even the
app’s definition of “outside” could mean standing at an intersection
or collecting the mail. My own personal data was pretty pathetic. The
app caught me exercising or relaxing outside only 17 times, or
percent of the pings over the course of a year. Most often I was
working, followed by number two, doing childcare, followed by
commuting, doing housework and eating (well, at least something was
fun). In the midst of a flirtation with meditating, I was caught doing
that exactly twice.
What Mappiness reveals—our epidemic dislocation from the
outdoors—is an indictment not only of the structures and habits of
modern society, but of our self-understanding. As the writer Annie
Dillard once said, how we spend our days is how we spend our lives.
Why don’t we do more of what makes our brains happy? Are we just
too knackered by life’s demands, too far away from greenery or too
tempted by indoor delights, especially the ones that plug in? Partly,
but not entirely. In a revealing set of studies at Trent University in
Ontario, psychologist Elizabeth Nisbet sent 150 students either
outside to walk on a nearby path along a canal, or underground to
walk through the well-used tunnels connecting buildings on campus.