Hacking Happiness
Authors: John Havens
“More than any time in human history, we have access to mountains of data about ourselves.
Hacking H(app)iness
is the first book to show us how to leverage this information as a path to happiness, rather than a source of misery.”
—
Adam Grant
,
New York Times–
bestselling author of
Give and Take
, and Wharton professor
“In
Hacking H(app)iness
, John C. Havens makes the persuasive case that a key to happiness in the digital age is being able to control and leverage your personal data for your own benefit. It’s a must-read for anyone who wants to better understand the interplay of economics, innovation, and the rising personal data sector, and how you can make better, smarter decisions when you’re in charge of your own data.”
—
Shane Green
, co-founder and CEO of Personal
“I’ve met and spoken with literally hundreds of people about aging and the consequences of isolation. Most of them knew the space; many of them understood the emotional impacts, but only John
felt
it. He intuitively understood how our societal focus on physical health was obscuring our view on emotional health.”
—
Iggy Fanlo
, co-founder and CEO of Live!y
“The unexamined digital life is walking along an unstable ledge of happiness, in an era of digital exuberance. John C. Havens’s
Hacking H(app)iness
is the balancing stick that allows us to synthesize and leverage technology by understanding the evolutionary value of one’s digital blueprint, so that well-being and happiness can emerge.”
—
Judy Martin
, founder of WorkLifeNation.com and contributor for
Forbes
and NPR
“John C. Havens gives us an illuminating examination of how emerging technology can be harnessed to promote individual, community, corporate, and global happiness. As one who studies intrinsic motivation, achievement, and happiness, I enjoyed John’s rare emphasis on altruistically serving others as a path toward greater happiness and health.”
—
John Mark Froiland, Ph.D.
, assistant professor of psychology, University of Northern Colorado
“In the twentieth century, we made great progress in terms of our material wealth, but we’re not really any happier. In this insightful book, John Havens shows us how the new century will bring us opportunities to improve our general well-being. Rather than keeping up with the Joneses, he explains how we can use technology to actually improve our lives. It is a truly remarkable work.”
—
Greg Satell
, contributing writer for
Forbes
“John Havens has written a comprehensive guide through our complicated digital lives, carefully examining the benefits of the data-driven pursuit of happiness through the lens of an enlightened idealist. A must-read for anyone interested in a humane future of connectivity.”
—
Tim Leberecht
, chief marketing officer of
NBBJ
“John Havens is leading the charge to change the way we talk and think about digital consumer technology. Rather than simply asking whether the latest gadget is faster or has more features, John encourages us to ask such questions as ‘Will this make me happier?’ And it’s not just a rhetorical ploy; he wants us to think through the question sincerely. John avoids the knee-jerk conclusions of both the techno-fanboy and neo-Luddite camps—to the occasional irritation of both—which makes his work all the more important.”
—
Brian Wassom
, augmented reality law expert, partner at Honigman Miller Schwartz and Cohn LLP
“This book shows us that happiness can be an active pursuit—a journey filled with data and optimization, with satisfaction as the ultimate goal. Just reading this book made me happier.”
—
Ari Meisel
, author of
Less Doing, More Living
, founder of the Art of Less Doing, and Ironman triathlete
“
Hacking H(app)iness
covers a whole range of technologies that are all emerging and looks at them from a positive perspective to see how they can help people, our communities, and the world. John’s approach is refreshing and adds new perspectives to consider how we as a society make considerations about what technologies to adopt and how they might fit together for the benefit of the whole.”
—
Kaliya
, aka “Identity Woman”
“In
Hacking H(app)iness
, John C. Havens proves the importance of measuring our lives to identify our purpose versus just increasing profits or productivity. By showing how altruistic actions can increase happiness, Havens also provides a road map to scaling (or hacking) how the world perceives value, where currency will be based on compassion versus capitalism.”
—
Aaron Hurst
, author of
The Purpose Economy
, and CEO of Imperative
JEREMY P. TARCHER/PENGUIN
Published by the Penguin Group
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Copyright © 2014 by John C. Havens
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Havens, John C.
Hacking happiness : why your personal data counts and how tracking it can change the world / John C. Havens.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-62195-0
1. Technological innovations—Social aspects. 2. Self-monitoring. 3. Data mining—Social aspects. 4. Well-being. 5. Happiness. I. Title.
HM846.H38 2014 2013038876
303.48’3—dc23
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Version_1
This book is dedicated to
David W. Havens, M.D.—the man who listened.
CONTENTS
Praise for Hacking H(app)iness
Identity and Measurement in the Connected World
Chapter 1 Your Identity in the Connected World
Chapter 2 Accountability-Based Influence
Chapter 3 Personal Identity Management
Chapter 4 Mobile Sensors
Chapter 5 Quantified Self
Chapter 6 The Internet of Things
Chapter 7 Artificial Intelligence
Broadcasting Value in the Personal Data Economy
Chapter 8 Big Data
Chapter 9 Augmented Reality
Chapter 10 Virtual Currency
Chapter 11 Shared Value
Chapter 12 From Consumer to Creator
Promoting Personal and Public Well-Being
Chapter 13 The Economy of Regard
Chapter 14 Positive Psychology
Chapter 15 Flow
Chapter 16 Altruism
Chapter 17 The Value of a Happiness Economy
Chapter 18 Beyond GDP
Chapter 19 Getting H(app)y
Chapter 20 Hacking H(app)iness
INTRODUCTION
I
T’S STRANGE
to look at a screen and see a number that represents your life.
My dad had died three months earlier and I was grieving in my own way. Like a lot of people dealing with loss, that way involved distraction. The number I was looking at was a score from a service called Klout, a self-described “authority for online influence.” On Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks, a series of algorithms determined a number between one and one hundred, a representation of the digital me.
I don’t remember my score. I just remember being wounded. I felt cheated that the number seemed low and someone I didn’t know was controlling the way I was valued. I tried to pretend the number didn’t bother me, but it did. I felt anxious, and began planning how I’d write a certain number of tweets or Facebook posts to
game the system. I’d comment for the sake of increasing my influence, whether or not I really had anything to say.
Then I stopped. I wondered who I had become if I was scripting my life in such a way that I was shaping my insights to either fit into 140 characters or be pithy enough to play well on Facebook. I realized I was living my life in spurts long enough to get a good sound bite.
I thought of my dad. I thought of my kids. I thought of what I’d leave behind as a legacy, and I took a moment to reflect on my life, instead of commenting on it. This was a risk. I knew reflecting meant dealing with the raw truth of who I was, but I genuinely wanted to understand the measure of my life. Fortunately, my answer came fairly quickly, and from a very deep place—I wanted my life to count.
My perspective changed immediately. I felt an internal shift, where my desire to create influence was supplanted by a need to create impact. This realization transformed my anxiety into a sense of well-being. Creating impact meant I’d pursue actions that had potential for helping others, versus focusing on digital influence, where I’d always be seeking immediate attention. Focusing on impact also felt pragmatic. When I pursued influence, I always felt exactly as I did when I pursued happiness just for the sake of it—narcissistic and exhausted. Intrinsic joy for me had always come from pursuing actions where happiness came as a
result
of dealing with adversity or meaningful challenge.
And regarding the measure of my life: I realized I meant the phrase literally. In the realm of technology, where I thought I was an expert, other people were making decisions that would determine how I’d be valued in the digital world. And I realized that similar decisions about online or mobile behavior made by other organizations would start to aggregate around the idea of people’s data. Data, I knew, that was already being sold in convoluted ways online, with people giving away their digital DNA in exchange for a onetime offer.
I saw a path toward an inevitable future where our digital identities were becoming tangible currency and our worth would be determined by algorithms. I saw that technologies like augmented reality would create an atmosphere where people would see the digital representations of other people before getting to know them in person. I saw that a tiny population of individuals determining digital rankings would literally alter how we would view the world, and how others would view us.