According to a new study done by Sociology students at the University of North Carolina, having friends is good for a person’s health starting in adolescence.

Data was taken from more than 14,000 Americans in 4 nationally representative groups from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States, Health and Retirement Study and the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project.

The study focuses on two primary dimensions that differently influence health at different parts of life: it measures both social connectedness and social support using age-appropriate conceptualizations of these dimensions for each changing life stage. Finally, the research also analyzes many objectively measured endophenotypes including C-reactive protein, hypertension, overall obesity, and abdominal obesity to express key physiological causes for common diseases that appear with aging. The results of the study found that social interaction is related to better physiological operating and less chance of physical diseases/disorders across different parts of the life course and led to lower anticipated values for biomarkers like CRP, waist circumference, Body Mass Index and systolic blood pressure.

Even when adjusting for age, sex, and race, there is still a statistically significant negative association between socialness and certain disorders, like high blood pressure.

Reflection

For this project, I was dealing with a news article that was fairly short, so including all the information from the study that was important was hard and forced me to be selective in what was included. Re-writing a news article is difficult for other reasons: since I was adapting this from a research article, I had to re-word things to make them understandable and casual to an everyday reader, as well as include information that is relevant to the article.

My summary focused more on how the research was found that the initial article. The New York Times article dealt mostly with what results were found as opposed to including what led researchers to these results, and I also included more information on what participants were found and where they were found. I feel as though knowing where participants came from helps people to better understand if these results can be generalized to everyone or only certain groups and allows them to more easily understand the results.

After doing this assignment, I better understand how hard it is for journalists to adapt research articles to something that can be used in popular media and read by everyday people, while also including what the research found. There are a lot of facts, results and processes that are deemed important from a research article but it is hard to include all of those things and maintain the interest of the average reader. So even though we should take articles that don’t include all the required information from an article in stride, we also need to understand the difficultly journalist face trying to write.

Summary of the Research Article:

The journal article “Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity” by Neal Lathia, Gillian M. Sandstrom, Cecilia Mascolo, and Peter J. Rentfrow attempted to find if physical activity throughout the day is tied to happiness.

The study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in smartphones to collect self-report data and smart-phone technology that measured movement to gather data on physical activity. Participants in the study were anyone who downloaded the app onto their android phones and continued to interact with the app throughout the study. There were over 10,000 participants in the study. The app sent two surveys to the participants between 8 AM and 10 PM, at least two hours apart, to measure emotion and physical activity. Participants’ happiness was measured by having them plot their mood on a graph relating to stress, excitement, depression, and relaxation. Participants also answered questions asking how much an adjective described their mood from 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest. Physical activity was measured both through self-report and data recorded by the phone itself. The app would ask what kind of physical activity a user had done in the past 15 minutes a long of what kind of emotions the participants felt.

The study found a positive correlation between physical activity and happiness. This correlation continued both on weekdays and weekends. Happier people tended to start their days earlier and end their days later and participate in physical activity during the entire day. The study also found a correlation between a lack of physical activity and lower levels of happiness. The physical activity measured wasn’t vigorous activity but a more everyday physical activity such as walking, running, or cycling. The researchers say this association between physical activity and happiness is “modest but reliable”, meaning that the correlation was small but consistent. The researchers caution against making extreme conclusions from this study, as it showed a small correlation between physical activity and happiness.

It is important to make the distinction between correlation and causation. The study did not show that physical movement caused happiness or that movement caused happiness. The only study that can show causation is an experiment. This study only showed that there seems to be a relationship between physical activity and happiness, and the researchers actually suggest that an experiment should be done to demonstrate causation.

The researchers assert that their use of phones to collect data may be a great way to collect data in future research studies, but they also caution against some problems arising from cell phone data. Participants are unlikely to have carried their phones and especially during vigorous exercise. It also drains the battery of the phone to continuously collect data. The researchers finally identify that it is hard to know how feedback from an act influences mood or behavior.

Ultimately, the researchers conclude that the study shows that the amount people move during the day is correlated with happiness.

Reflection:

As I was summarizing the article, I felt some sympathy for the journalist who wrote the original news article. It is difficult to relay scientific information while still keeping the article interesting for the general public. It is also difficult to relay scientific information using common words and phrases so the average person can understand it. I couldn’t include how the data from the android on physical activity correlated with the self-report data on physical activity, which showed that the data from the phone was a reliable measure to use for physical activity. I also would have liked to include some more information on how the researchers collected data and what type of questions they asked participants to answer. I decided that these two pieces of information could be sacrificed without severely altering the understanding of the study. I aslo felt that omitting a different section, such as the section on limitations of the study, would have been more damaging to someone’s understanding of the study than the details of how the study was carried out.

My perspective of journalists has definitely changed over the course of these projects. At first, I felt like journalists wrote articles to get views and not really to inform the general public. After reading this news article and trying to summarize the study myself, I have realized that a journalist’s job is a lot more difficult than I originally realized. Journalists have to make an article interesting in order to inform people, and I now think that journalists have a more noble intent in writing than I did at the beginning of this project.

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/well/move/get-up-and-move-it-may-make-you-happier.html?_r=0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5213770/

Summary of the Research Article:

The journal article “Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity” by Neal Lathia, Gillian M. Sandstrom, Cecilia Mascolo, and Peter J. Rentfrow attempted to find if physical activity throughout the day is tied to happiness.

The study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in smartphones to collect self-report data and smart-phone technology that measured movement to gather data on physical activity. Participants in the study were anyone who downloaded the app onto their android phones and continued to interact with the app throughout the study. There were over 10,000 participants in the study. The app sent two surveys to the participants between 8 AM and 10 PM, at least two hours apart, to measure emotion and physical activity. Participants’ happiness was measured by having them plot their mood on a graph relating to stress, excitement, depression, and relaxation. Participants also answered questions asking how much an adjective described their mood from 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest. Physical activity was measured both through self-report and data recorded by the phone itself. The app would ask what kind of physical activity a user had done in the past 15 minutes a long of what kind of emotions the participants felt.

The study found a positive correlation between physical activity and happiness. This correlation continued both on weekdays and weekends. Happier people tended to start their days earlier and end their days later and participate in physical activity during the entire day. The study also found a correlation between a lack of physical activity and lower levels of happiness. The physical activity measured wasn’t vigorous activity but a more everyday physical activity such as walking, running, or cycling. The researchers say this association between physical activity and happiness is “modest but reliable”, meaning that the correlation was small but consistent. The researchers caution against making extreme conclusions from this study, as it showed a small correlation between physical activity and happiness.

It is important to make the distinction between correlation and causation. The study did not show that physical movement caused happiness or that movement caused happiness. The only study that can show causation is an experiment. This study only showed that there seems to be a relationship between physical activity and happiness, and the researchers actually suggest that an experiment should be done to demonstrate causation.

The researchers assert that their use of phones to collect data may be a great way to collect data in future research studies, but they also caution against some problems arising from cell phone data. Participants are unlikely to have carried their phones and especially during vigorous exercise. It also drains the battery of the phone to continuously collect data. The researchers finally identify that it is hard to know how feedback from an act influences mood or behavior.

Ultimately, the researchers conclude that the study shows that the amount people move during the day is correlated with happiness.

Reflection:

As I was summarizing the article, I felt some sympathy for the journalist who wrote the original news article. It is difficult to relay scientific information while still keeping the article interesting for the general public. It is also difficult to relay scientific information using common words and phrases so the average person can understand it. I couldn’t include how the data from the android on physical activity correlated with the self-report data on physical activity, which showed that the data from the phone was a reliable measure to use for physical activity. I also would have liked to include some more information on how the researchers collected data and what type of questions they asked participants to answer. I decided that these two pieces of information could be sacrificed without severely altering the understanding of the study. I aslo felt that omitting a different section, such as the section on limitations of the study, would have been more damaging to someone’s understanding of the study than the details of how the study was carried out.

My perspective of journalists has definitely changed over the course of these projects. At first, I felt like journalists wrote articles to get views and not really to inform the general public. After reading this news article and trying to summarize the study myself, I have realized that a journalist’s job is a lot more difficult than I originally realized. Journalists have to make an article interesting in order to inform people, and I now think that journalists have a more noble intent in writing than I did at the beginning of this project.

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/well/move/get-up-and-move-it-may-make-you-happier.html?_r=0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5213770/

Summary of the Research Article:

The journal article “Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity” by Neal Lathia, Gillian M. Sandstrom, Cecilia Mascolo, and Peter J. Rentfrow attempted to find if physical activity throughout the day is tied to happiness.

The study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in smartphones to collect self-report data and smart-phone technology that measured movement to gather data on physical activity. Participants in the study were anyone who downloaded the app onto their android phones and continued to interact with the app throughout the study. There were over 10,000 participants in the study. The app sent two surveys to the participants between 8 AM and 10 PM, at least two hours apart, to measure emotion and physical activity. Participants’ happiness was measured by having them plot their mood on a graph relating to stress, excitement, depression, and relaxation. Participants also answered questions asking how much an adjective described their mood from 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest. Physical activity was measured both through self-report and data recorded by the phone itself. The app would ask what kind of physical activity a user had done in the past 15 minutes a long of what kind of emotions the participants felt.

The study found a positive correlation between physical activity and happiness. This correlation continued both on weekdays and weekends. Happier people tended to start their days earlier and end their days later and participate in physical activity during the entire day. The study also found a correlation between a lack of physical activity and lower levels of happiness. The physical activity measured wasn’t vigorous activity but a more everyday physical activity such as walking, running, or cycling. The researchers say this association between physical activity and happiness is “modest but reliable”, meaning that the correlation was small but consistent. The researchers caution against making extreme conclusions from this study, as it showed a small correlation between physical activity and happiness.

It is important to make the distinction between correlation and causation. The study did not show that physical movement caused happiness or that movement caused happiness. The only study that can show causation is an experiment. This study only showed that there seems to be a relationship between physical activity and happiness, and the researchers actually suggest that an experiment should be done to demonstrate causation.

The researchers assert that their use of phones to collect data may be a great way to collect data in future research studies, but they also caution against some problems arising from cell phone data. Participants are unlikely to have carried their phones and especially during vigorous exercise. It also drains the battery of the phone to continuously collect data. The researchers finally identify that it is hard to know how feedback from an act influences mood or behavior.

Ultimately, the researchers conclude that the study shows that the amount people move during the day is correlated with happiness.

Reflection:

As I was summarizing the article, I felt some sympathy for the journalist who wrote the original news article. It is difficult to relay scientific information while still keeping the article interesting for the general public. It is also difficult to relay scientific information using common words and phrases so the average person can understand it. I couldn’t include how the data from the android on physical activity correlated with the self-report data on physical activity, which showed that the data from the phone was a reliable measure to use for physical activity. I also would have liked to include some more information on how the researchers collected data and what type of questions they asked participants to answer. I decided that these two pieces of information could be sacrificed without severely altering the understanding of the study. I aslo felt that omitting a different section, such as the section on limitations of the study, would have been more damaging to someone’s understanding of the study than the details of how the study was carried out.

My perspective of journalists has definitely changed over the course of these projects. At first, I felt like journalists wrote articles to get views and not really to inform the general public. After reading this news article and trying to summarize the study myself, I have realized that a journalist’s job is a lot more difficult than I originally realized. Journalists have to make an article interesting in order to inform people, and I now think that journalists have a more noble intent in writing than I did at the beginning of this project.

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/well/move/get-up-and-move-it-may-make-you-happier.html?_r=0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5213770/

Summary of the Research Article:

The journal article “Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity” by Neal Lathia, Gillian M. Sandstrom, Cecilia Mascolo, and Peter J. Rentfrow attempted to find if physical activity throughout the day is tied to happiness.

The study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in smartphones to collect self-report data and smart-phone technology that measured movement to gather data on physical activity. Participants in the study were anyone who downloaded the app onto their android phones and continued to interact with the app throughout the study. There were over 10,000 participants in the study. The app sent two surveys to the participants between 8 AM and 10 PM, at least two hours apart, to measure emotion and physical activity. Participants’ happiness was measured by having them plot their mood on a graph relating to stress, excitement, depression, and relaxation. Participants also answered questions asking how much an adjective described their mood from 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest. Physical activity was measured both through self-report and data recorded by the phone itself. The app would ask what kind of physical activity a user had done in the past 15 minutes a long of what kind of emotions the participants felt.

The study found a positive correlation between physical activity and happiness. This correlation continued both on weekdays and weekends. Happier people tended to start their days earlier and end their days later and participate in physical activity during the entire day. The study also found a correlation between a lack of physical activity and lower levels of happiness. The physical activity measured wasn’t vigorous activity but a more everyday physical activity such as walking, running, or cycling. The researchers say this association between physical activity and happiness is “modest but reliable”, meaning that the correlation was small but consistent. The researchers caution against making extreme conclusions from this study, as it showed a small correlation between physical activity and happiness.

It is important to make the distinction between correlation and causation. The study did not show that physical movement caused happiness or that movement caused happiness. The only study that can show causation is an experiment. This study only showed that there seems to be a relationship between physical activity and happiness, and the researchers actually suggest that an experiment should be done to demonstrate causation.

The researchers assert that their use of phones to collect data may be a great way to collect data in future research studies, but they also caution against some problems arising from cell phone data. Participants are unlikely to have carried their phones and especially during vigorous exercise. It also drains the battery of the phone to continuously collect data. The researchers finally identify that it is hard to know how feedback from an act influences mood or behavior.

Ultimately, the researchers conclude that the study shows that the amount people move during the day is correlated with happiness.

Reflection:

As I was summarizing the article, I felt some sympathy for the journalist who wrote the original news article. It is difficult to relay scientific information while still keeping the article interesting for the general public. It is also difficult to relay scientific information using common words and phrases so the average person can understand it. I couldn’t include how the data from the android on physical activity correlated with the self-report data on physical activity, which showed that the data from the phone was a reliable measure to use for physical activity. I also would have liked to include some more information on how the researchers collected data and what type of questions they asked participants to answer. I decided that these two pieces of information could be sacrificed without severely altering the understanding of the study. I aslo felt that omitting a different section, such as the section on limitations of the study, would have been more damaging to someone’s understanding of the study than the details of how the study was carried out.

My perspective of journalists has definitely changed over the course of these projects. At first, I felt like journalists wrote articles to get views and not really to inform the general public. After reading this news article and trying to summarize the study myself, I have realized that a journalist’s job is a lot more difficult than I originally realized. Journalists have to make an article interesting in order to inform people, and I now think that journalists have a more noble intent in writing than I did at the beginning of this project.

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/well/move/get-up-and-move-it-may-make-you-happier.html?_r=0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5213770/

Summary of the Research Article:

The journal article “Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity” by Neal Lathia, Gillian M. Sandstrom, Cecilia Mascolo, and Peter J. Rentfrow attempted to find if physical activity throughout the day is tied to happiness.

The study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in smartphones to collect self-report data and smart-phone technology that measured movement to gather data on physical activity. Participants in the study were anyone who downloaded the app onto their android phones and continued to interact with the app throughout the study. There were over 10,000 participants in the study. The app sent two surveys to the participants between 8 AM and 10 PM, at least two hours apart, to measure emotion and physical activity. Participants’ happiness was measured by having them plot their mood on a graph relating to stress, excitement, depression, and relaxation. Participants also answered questions asking how much an adjective described their mood from 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest. Physical activity was measured both through self-report and data recorded by the phone itself. The app would ask what kind of physical activity a user had done in the past 15 minutes a long of what kind of emotions the participants felt.

The study found a positive correlation between physical activity and happiness. This correlation continued both on weekdays and weekends. Happier people tended to start their days earlier and end their days later and participate in physical activity during the entire day. The study also found a correlation between a lack of physical activity and lower levels of happiness. The physical activity measured wasn’t vigorous activity but a more everyday physical activity such as walking, running, or cycling. The researchers say this association between physical activity and happiness is “modest but reliable”, meaning that the correlation was small but consistent. The researchers caution against making extreme conclusions from this study, as it showed a small correlation between physical activity and happiness.

It is important to make the distinction between correlation and causation. The study did not show that physical movement caused happiness or that movement caused happiness. The only study that can show causation is an experiment. This study only showed that there seems to be a relationship between physical activity and happiness, and the researchers actually suggest that an experiment should be done to demonstrate causation.

The researchers assert that their use of phones to collect data may be a great way to collect data in future research studies, but they also caution against some problems arising from cell phone data. Participants are unlikely to have carried their phones and especially during vigorous exercise. It also drains the battery of the phone to continuously collect data. The researchers finally identify that it is hard to know how feedback from an act influences mood or behavior.

Ultimately, the researchers conclude that the study shows that the amount people move during the day is correlated with happiness.

Reflection:

As I was summarizing the article, I felt some sympathy for the journalist who wrote the original news article. It is difficult to relay scientific information while still keeping the article interesting for the general public. It is also difficult to relay scientific information using common words and phrases so the average person can understand it. I couldn’t include how the data from the android on physical activity correlated with the self-report data on physical activity, which showed that the data from the phone was a reliable measure to use for physical activity. I also would have liked to include some more information on how the researchers collected data and what type of questions they asked participants to answer. I decided that these two pieces of information could be sacrificed without severely altering the understanding of the study. I aslo felt that omitting a different section, such as the section on limitations of the study, would have been more damaging to someone’s understanding of the study than the details of how the study was carried out.

My perspective of journalists has definitely changed over the course of these projects. At first, I felt like journalists wrote articles to get views and not really to inform the general public. After reading this news article and trying to summarize the study myself, I have realized that a journalist’s job is a lot more difficult than I originally realized. Journalists have to make an article interesting in order to inform people, and I now think that journalists have a more noble intent in writing than I did at the beginning of this project.

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/well/move/get-up-and-move-it-may-make-you-happier.html?_r=0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5213770/

Summary of the Research Article:

The journal article “Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity” by Neal Lathia, Gillian M. Sandstrom, Cecilia Mascolo, and Peter J. Rentfrow attempted to find if physical activity throughout the day is tied to happiness.

The study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in smartphones to collect self-report data and smart-phone technology that measured movement to gather data on physical activity. Participants in the study were anyone who downloaded the app onto their android phones and continued to interact with the app throughout the study. There were over 10,000 participants in the study. The app sent two surveys to the participants between 8 AM and 10 PM, at least two hours apart, to measure emotion and physical activity. Participants’ happiness was measured by having them plot their mood on a graph relating to stress, excitement, depression, and relaxation. Participants also answered questions asking how much an adjective described their mood from 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest. Physical activity was measured both through self-report and data recorded by the phone itself. The app would ask what kind of physical activity a user had done in the past 15 minutes a long of what kind of emotions the participants felt.

The study found a positive correlation between physical activity and happiness. This correlation continued both on weekdays and weekends. Happier people tended to start their days earlier and end their days later and participate in physical activity during the entire day. The study also found a correlation between a lack of physical activity and lower levels of happiness. The physical activity measured wasn’t vigorous activity but a more everyday physical activity such as walking, running, or cycling. The researchers say this association between physical activity and happiness is “modest but reliable”, meaning that the correlation was small but consistent. The researchers caution against making extreme conclusions from this study, as it showed a small correlation between physical activity and happiness.

It is important to make the distinction between correlation and causation. The study did not show that physical movement caused happiness or that movement caused happiness. The only study that can show causation is an experiment. This study only showed that there seems to be a relationship between physical activity and happiness, and the researchers actually suggest that an experiment should be done to demonstrate causation.

The researchers assert that their use of phones to collect data may be a great way to collect data in future research studies, but they also caution against some problems arising from cell phone data. Participants are unlikely to have carried their phones and especially during vigorous exercise. It also drains the battery of the phone to continuously collect data. The researchers finally identify that it is hard to know how feedback from an act influences mood or behavior.

Ultimately, the researchers conclude that the study shows that the amount people move during the day is correlated with happiness.

Reflection:

As I was summarizing the article, I felt some sympathy for the journalist who wrote the original news article. It is difficult to relay scientific information while still keeping the article interesting for the general public. It is also difficult to relay scientific information using common words and phrases so the average person can understand it. I couldn’t include how the data from the android on physical activity correlated with the self-report data on physical activity, which showed that the data from the phone was a reliable measure to use for physical activity. I also would have liked to include some more information on how the researchers collected data and what type of questions they asked participants to answer. I decided that these two pieces of information could be sacrificed without severely altering the understanding of the study. I aslo felt that omitting a different section, such as the section on limitations of the study, would have been more damaging to someone’s understanding of the study than the details of how the study was carried out.

My perspective of journalists has definitely changed over the course of these projects. At first, I felt like journalists wrote articles to get views and not really to inform the general public. After reading this news article and trying to summarize the study myself, I have realized that a journalist’s job is a lot more difficult than I originally realized. Journalists have to make an article interesting in order to inform people, and I now think that journalists have a more noble intent in writing than I did at the beginning of this project.

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/well/move/get-up-and-move-it-may-make-you-happier.html?_r=0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5213770/

Summary of the Research Article:

The journal article “Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity” by Neal Lathia, Gillian M. Sandstrom, Cecilia Mascolo, and Peter J. Rentfrow attempted to find if physical activity throughout the day is tied to happiness.

The study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in smartphones to collect self-report data and smart-phone technology that measured movement to gather data on physical activity. Participants in the study were anyone who downloaded the app onto their android phones and continued to interact with the app throughout the study. There were over 10,000 participants in the study. The app sent two surveys to the participants between 8 AM and 10 PM, at least two hours apart, to measure emotion and physical activity. Participants’ happiness was measured by having them plot their mood on a graph relating to stress, excitement, depression, and relaxation. Participants also answered questions asking how much an adjective described their mood from 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest. Physical activity was measured both through self-report and data recorded by the phone itself. The app would ask what kind of physical activity a user had done in the past 15 minutes a long of what kind of emotions the participants felt.

The study found a positive correlation between physical activity and happiness. This correlation continued both on weekdays and weekends. Happier people tended to start their days earlier and end their days later and participate in physical activity during the entire day. The study also found a correlation between a lack of physical activity and lower levels of happiness. The physical activity measured wasn’t vigorous activity but a more everyday physical activity such as walking, running, or cycling. The researchers say this association between physical activity and happiness is “modest but reliable”, meaning that the correlation was small but consistent. The researchers caution against making extreme conclusions from this study, as it showed a small correlation between physical activity and happiness.

It is important to make the distinction between correlation and causation. The study did not show that physical movement caused happiness or that movement caused happiness. The only study that can show causation is an experiment. This study only showed that there seems to be a relationship between physical activity and happiness, and the researchers actually suggest that an experiment should be done to demonstrate causation.

The researchers assert that their use of phones to collect data may be a great way to collect data in future research studies, but they also caution against some problems arising from cell phone data. Participants are unlikely to have carried their phones and especially during vigorous exercise. It also drains the battery of the phone to continuously collect data. The researchers finally identify that it is hard to know how feedback from an act influences mood or behavior.

Ultimately, the researchers conclude that the study shows that the amount people move during the day is correlated with happiness.

Reflection:

As I was summarizing the article, I felt some sympathy for the journalist who wrote the original news article. It is difficult to relay scientific information while still keeping the article interesting for the general public. It is also difficult to relay scientific information using common words and phrases so the average person can understand it. I couldn’t include how the data from the android on physical activity correlated with the self-report data on physical activity, which showed that the data from the phone was a reliable measure to use for physical activity. I also would have liked to include some more information on how the researchers collected data and what type of questions they asked participants to answer. I decided that these two pieces of information could be sacrificed without severely altering the understanding of the study. I aslo felt that omitting a different section, such as the section on limitations of the study, would have been more damaging to someone’s understanding of the study than the details of how the study was carried out.

My perspective of journalists has definitely changed over the course of these projects. At first, I felt like journalists wrote articles to get views and not really to inform the general public. After reading this news article and trying to summarize the study myself, I have realized that a journalist’s job is a lot more difficult than I originally realized. Journalists have to make an article interesting in order to inform people, and I now think that journalists have a more noble intent in writing than I did at the beginning of this project.

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/well/move/get-up-and-move-it-may-make-you-happier.html?_r=0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5213770/

Summary of the Research Article:

The journal article “Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity” by Neal Lathia, Gillian M. Sandstrom, Cecilia Mascolo, and Peter J. Rentfrow attempted to find if physical activity throughout the day is tied to happiness.

The study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in smartphones to collect self-report data and smart-phone technology that measured movement to gather data on physical activity. Participants in the study were anyone who downloaded the app onto their android phones and continued to interact with the app throughout the study. There were over 10,000 participants in the study. The app sent two surveys to the participants between 8 AM and 10 PM, at least two hours apart, to measure emotion and physical activity. Participants’ happiness was measured by having them plot their mood on a graph relating to stress, excitement, depression, and relaxation. Participants also answered questions asking how much an adjective described their mood from 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest. Physical activity was measured both through self-report and data recorded by the phone itself. The app would ask what kind of physical activity a user had done in the past 15 minutes a long of what kind of emotions the participants felt.

The study found a positive correlation between physical activity and happiness. This correlation continued both on weekdays and weekends. Happier people tended to start their days earlier and end their days later and participate in physical activity during the entire day. The study also found a correlation between a lack of physical activity and lower levels of happiness. The physical activity measured wasn’t vigorous activity but a more everyday physical activity such as walking, running, or cycling. The researchers say this association between physical activity and happiness is “modest but reliable”, meaning that the correlation was small but consistent. The researchers caution against making extreme conclusions from this study, as it showed a small correlation between physical activity and happiness.

It is important to make the distinction between correlation and causation. The study did not show that physical movement caused happiness or that movement caused happiness. The only study that can show causation is an experiment. This study only showed that there seems to be a relationship between physical activity and happiness, and the researchers actually suggest that an experiment should be done to demonstrate causation.

The researchers assert that their use of phones to collect data may be a great way to collect data in future research studies, but they also caution against some problems arising from cell phone data. Participants are unlikely to have carried their phones and especially during vigorous exercise. It also drains the battery of the phone to continuously collect data. The researchers finally identify that it is hard to know how feedback from an act influences mood or behavior.

Ultimately, the researchers conclude that the study shows that the amount people move during the day is correlated with happiness.

Reflection:

As I was summarizing the article, I felt some sympathy for the journalist who wrote the original news article. It is difficult to relay scientific information while still keeping the article interesting for the general public. It is also difficult to relay scientific information using common words and phrases so the average person can understand it. I couldn’t include how the data from the android on physical activity correlated with the self-report data on physical activity, which showed that the data from the phone was a reliable measure to use for physical activity. I also would have liked to include some more information on how the researchers collected data and what type of questions they asked participants to answer. I decided that these two pieces of information could be sacrificed without severely altering the understanding of the study. I aslo felt that omitting a different section, such as the section on limitations of the study, would have been more damaging to someone’s understanding of the study than the details of how the study was carried out.

My perspective of journalists has definitely changed over the course of these projects. At first, I felt like journalists wrote articles to get views and not really to inform the general public. After reading this news article and trying to summarize the study myself, I have realized that a journalist’s job is a lot more difficult than I originally realized. Journalists have to make an article interesting in order to inform people, and I now think that journalists have a more noble intent in writing than I did at the beginning of this project.

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/well/move/get-up-and-move-it-may-make-you-happier.html?_r=0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5213770/

Summary of the Research Article:

The journal article “Happier People Live More Active Lives: Using Smartphones to Link Happiness and Physical Activity” by Neal Lathia, Gillian M. Sandstrom, Cecilia Mascolo, and Peter J. Rentfrow attempted to find if physical activity throughout the day is tied to happiness.

The study used ecological momentary assessment (EMA) in smartphones to collect self-report data and smart-phone technology that measured movement to gather data on physical activity. Participants in the study were anyone who downloaded the app onto their android phones and continued to interact with the app throughout the study. There were over 10,000 participants in the study. The app sent two surveys to the participants between 8 AM and 10 PM, at least two hours apart, to measure emotion and physical activity. Participants’ happiness was measured by having them plot their mood on a graph relating to stress, excitement, depression, and relaxation. Participants also answered questions asking how much an adjective described their mood from 1 to 7, with 1 being the lowest and 7 the highest. Physical activity was measured both through self-report and data recorded by the phone itself. The app would ask what kind of physical activity a user had done in the past 15 minutes a long of what kind of emotions the participants felt.

The study found a positive correlation between physical activity and happiness. This correlation continued both on weekdays and weekends. Happier people tended to start their days earlier and end their days later and participate in physical activity during the entire day. The study also found a correlation between a lack of physical activity and lower levels of happiness. The physical activity measured wasn’t vigorous activity but a more everyday physical activity such as walking, running, or cycling. The researchers say this association between physical activity and happiness is “modest but reliable”, meaning that the correlation was small but consistent. The researchers caution against making extreme conclusions from this study, as it showed a small correlation between physical activity and happiness.

It is important to make the distinction between correlation and causation. The study did not show that physical movement caused happiness or that movement caused happiness. The only study that can show causation is an experiment. This study only showed that there seems to be a relationship between physical activity and happiness, and the researchers actually suggest that an experiment should be done to demonstrate causation.

The researchers assert that their use of phones to collect data may be a great way to collect data in future research studies, but they also caution against some problems arising from cell phone data. Participants are unlikely to have carried their phones and especially during vigorous exercise. It also drains the battery of the phone to continuously collect data. The researchers finally identify that it is hard to know how feedback from an act influences mood or behavior.

Ultimately, the researchers conclude that the study shows that the amount people move during the day is correlated with happiness.

Reflection:

As I was summarizing the article, I felt some sympathy for the journalist who wrote the original news article. It is difficult to relay scientific information while still keeping the article interesting for the general public. It is also difficult to relay scientific information using common words and phrases so the average person can understand it. I couldn’t include how the data from the android on physical activity correlated with the self-report data on physical activity, which showed that the data from the phone was a reliable measure to use for physical activity. I also would have liked to include some more information on how the researchers collected data and what type of questions they asked participants to answer. I decided that these two pieces of information could be sacrificed without severely altering the understanding of the study. I aslo felt that omitting a different section, such as the section on limitations of the study, would have been more damaging to someone’s understanding of the study than the details of how the study was carried out.

My perspective of journalists has definitely changed over the course of these projects. At first, I felt like journalists wrote articles to get views and not really to inform the general public. After reading this news article and trying to summarize the study myself, I have realized that a journalist’s job is a lot more difficult than I originally realized. Journalists have to make an article interesting in order to inform people, and I now think that journalists have a more noble intent in writing than I did at the beginning of this project.

Links:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/25/well/move/get-up-and-move-it-may-make-you-happier.html?_r=0

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5213770/