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The tech startups that believe happiness can be found in an app
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
Posted: September 24th, 2013
http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/technology-h...
To the startups behind a series of new phone and tablet apps designed to make you smile, happiness is big business. Happier Inc ... launched a phone app in February encouraging users to reflect upon and share pleasant everyday moments. Built around the theory that writing down a nice thought is good for you and that positivity is contagious, the app is about helping consumers take stock of what's good in their life now and to treasure it, says [founder Nataly Kogan]. In the process, she is hoping to prove the technology haters wrong and remedy the negativity on social networks. "On Facebook, we're all bragging," she says. We present the best versions of ourselves and then our friends compare the real versions of their lives to our best versions, and that is depressing." Happier is not alone however. An array of other apps such as Mappiness, Happy Apps and Live Happy have come onto the market in the last couple of years, variously promising to track, share or enact moments of joy. John C Havens, author and founder of non-profit, H(app)athon Project, which uses mobile data to provide recommendations for volunteerism in the local community, suggests digital tools designed to measure contentment redress an imbalance in society where economic data is too often prioritised over social data. "There is real joy in discovery and introspection and reflection, which is something that we lack in modern society where we are so obsessed with productivity," he says. "If you allow yourself on a personal level, that self-reflection, as aided by these technologies, the hope is that you will discover areas of your life you have not been giving credit to."
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