The Little Book of Lykke: Secrets of the World's Happiest People (The Happiness Institute Series)

by Meik Wiking

We are drawn in by the illusion of connection without the demands of intimacy, and while there are positive aspects of social media (for example, keeping in touch when geographically apart), we find that people who reduce their consumption of social media are happier and connect more in the real world.

There's a lot of truth to this.

we are spending money we don’t have to buy stuff we don’t need to impress people we don’t like.

Word.

What the researchers discovered was that the main predictor of how much people help others in cities is how crowded the city is. If there are more people, individuals feel more disconnected and less responsible for others and are therefore less willing to help. When they looked at twenty-four cities in the US, the researchers found that the lowest level of help was in New York City and the highest was in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Kudos Knoxville!