The Happiness Effect

Freitas, D. (2017). The happiness effect. Oxford University Press.

The Happiness Effect by Donna Freitas tackles the issues of social media and how it is effecting today’s society.

Freitas shows that there is an enormous pressure on young people to look happy all the time on their social media platforms. The constant exposure to the ‘seemingly perfect’ lives of other people on social media and the lack of serious discussion about social media on the news and in magazines only makes themselves feel worse; often leading to depression, isolation and alienation.

I want my work to push these issues within my work, whether it is apparent or not is not an issue to me. It is the personal affliction and representation within the work and in the process of making the work which speaks more to me. It’s the recognisable feeling within my images that speaks more to me. The way that the viewers relate to the image and the aura that it creates.

Quotes

“One afternoon, after a particularly heavy snow, the students began to talk about their inability to sit still and their fear of doing so. Fear. This was the word they used. Being bored, having nothing to do, simply stopping and not using their phones to fill the silence. It scared them because their thoughts scared them. The way their thoughts about anything - life, relationships, love, work, school, family, friends, choices, their futures - would just show up in a way they couldn’t control or block was very upsetting.” pg XIV Preface

“Students discuss the notion of the ‘real me’ versus the ‘online me’ and the dissonance they feel between these, the pressure to document publicity a certain kind of college experience, their fears about making themselves vulnerable on social media, and their worries about how to maintain real, meaninful relationships when a seemingly artificial online world dominates their social lives.” pg 10

“Many young adults experience some kind of alienation because of social media, but they are further alienated because they don’t see a thriving public discussion about the strugles they are experiencing - perhaps because those struggles aren’t as racy or extreme as the ones that are the stuff of newspaper and magazine headlines.” pg 10

“In ‘The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media’ Jose Van Dijck names what she calls the ‘popularity principle,’ the idea that, on social media, quantity equals value” pg 19