What the iPhone Teaches Us About Happiness

Image by zosoiv71 via Flickr

My iPhone — all of our iPhones, really — is teaching me about happiness today.

I love my iPhone. I’d lay down my life for it. If it fell onto the subway tracks, I’d jump in and grab it — ignoring the posted signs and tempting fate to strike me down for my worship of a material good. A bright, shiny, covetable material good.

But, as of tomorrow, it’s dog food.

Okay, not yet. But the Alpoization process begins Friday, as the iPhone 3G S goes on sale nationwide. There’s really not that much different about the new model. It has a compass, which is actually something I’m dying for in a phone. But my key chain has a compass (a crappy but sentimental one that I picked up on my honeymoon). It records video. Which my current iPhone should, seeing as how my crappy Treo used to, even years ago. And, I hear it’s faster. The S is for Speed. Mmmm… faster.

Still, it would be ludicrous to upgrade. And, like most folks with the current 3G model, I’m going to wait a while (certainly through 2009) before even thinking about a new one.

But just thinking about thinking about a new one reminds me of some of the research that’s been done into happiness: In particular, a couple recent studies looked at what makes us happier — things or experiences?

We live, of course, in a materialistic culture where the obvious answer is “things.” But I’m writing this post, so you know the answer probably isn’t the obvious one (or maybe it is obvious by now because it’s so non-obvious — never mind). What the studies found, to make a long story short, is that experiences actually make us happier than things over the long run.

Measuring happiness is a tricky thing — it’s not a chemical in the blood or a spot of activity in the brain that can be measured directly. So, the studies had people recall material purchases and experiential purchases, and then they measured mood and happiness through direct and indirect questions.

In a 2003 study (PDF), written up by Neuronarrative here, researchers found that experiential purchases made people happier and put them in a better mood when they recalled them (compared to material purchases). The researchers put forward three possible reasons this is the case:

1) Experiences are more open to positive reinterpretation. (What will look better in three years’ time?: Your new car or the hiking trip you took to Alaska? You may be miserable during the Alaska hike, you may have blisters when you get back — but unless your friend was eaten by a grizzly bear, you’re probably going to remember it fondly.)

2) Experiences are more central to one’s identity. (What is life, after all, other than the accumulation of experiences?)

3) Experiences have greater social value. (Most activities involve other people in some way. And they’re something to talk about.)

A follow-up study in 2009, written up by Psyblog here, looked at good and bad material and experiential purchases. Experiential purchases still came out on top if both types of purchases went well. If the purchases went badly, however, you were better off with the material purchase — you’ll forget about a bum product before you’ll forget about a horrible trip (on this one, let’s say your friend did get eaten by that grizzly… or at least mauled). The amusing caveat: If you’re super materialistic, this is reversed; you’ll really regret that bad material purchase. So, at least for the materialist, you’re still better off choosing the experiential purchase.

The basic lesson from both studies — which brings us back to the iPhone — is this… To quote the first study: “One of the core findings of subjective well-being research is that people adapt to material advances, requiring continued increases to achieve the same level of satisfaction.”

That new car, that raise, that new iPhone… You’ll be over the moon for a couple of days. Maybe weeks. Probably not months. And, after that, like a drug addict, you’ll need an even bigger score to get that happiness high. My Treo blew (though, I can still vaguely recall loving it when I first got it, all those years ago), then my iPhone blew me away. Now, my iPhone’s just my phone — even if I’m strongly attached to it. As it gets older, and newer things come out, I’ll get less and less happiness from thinking about it. Meanwhile, the memory of a weekend away with my then-girlfriend, now-wife only gets better with time. And the trip I’m about to leave on for 10 days — more on that later — will bring me more happiness five years from now than any iPhone I could buy ever would.

And that trip is a purchase, as most choices in modern life are. I’m spending money on it instead of on a material thing. So, the next time you’re about to shell out for a new gadget, think about how it will wear with time. And think about the other types of things you could buy to make yourself happier in the long run. That iPhone 3G S could easily pay for a weekend away. Maybe it should.