Jul 5, 2024 06:13 PM
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/35802...easure-gdp
INTRO: The Gallup Global Emotions Report for 2024, released last Tuesday, starts with a provocation. By trying to measure life’s intangibles, like feelings and emotions, the survey is seeking insights into the health of societies that, as the authors of the report themselves note, “traditional economic indicators such as GDP were never intended to capture.”
Thankfully, the report doesn’t offer yet another critique of why GDP isn’t a perfect indicator for progress. Instead, it reports on the annual state of two indexes — one for positive emotions, the other for negative — that can complement GDP in trying to give us a quick sense of how society is actually doing.
The results are surprisingly … fine.
Perhaps you’ve felt that the world is accelerating into chaos; heard more chatter about the experts who think AI will lead to human extinction; or thought that even if it doesn’t, our continued failure to adequately deal with climate change will get the job done anyway. Or maybe you have children, and have been particularly attuned to how screwed we keep hearing youth mental health is.
Media is known to lean negative. I could rewrite that doomer-esque paragraph about the world accelerating into gloomy chaos in its mirror image, rattling off incredibly exciting achievements, ideas, and success stories that fuel a sense of optimism. In fact, we did a whole package like that here.
Yet, the topline results from the Gallup report look pretty good. Positive emotions reached a score of 71 out of 100 worldwide, the highest since the pandemic began. And negative emotions dropped for the first time since 2014. Among all age groups, young people were, by far, the best off. They experienced more positive emotions than anyone else and fewer negative ones. And in both directions, that’s been the case since measurement began in 2006... (MORE - details)
INTRO: The Gallup Global Emotions Report for 2024, released last Tuesday, starts with a provocation. By trying to measure life’s intangibles, like feelings and emotions, the survey is seeking insights into the health of societies that, as the authors of the report themselves note, “traditional economic indicators such as GDP were never intended to capture.”
Thankfully, the report doesn’t offer yet another critique of why GDP isn’t a perfect indicator for progress. Instead, it reports on the annual state of two indexes — one for positive emotions, the other for negative — that can complement GDP in trying to give us a quick sense of how society is actually doing.
The results are surprisingly … fine.
Perhaps you’ve felt that the world is accelerating into chaos; heard more chatter about the experts who think AI will lead to human extinction; or thought that even if it doesn’t, our continued failure to adequately deal with climate change will get the job done anyway. Or maybe you have children, and have been particularly attuned to how screwed we keep hearing youth mental health is.
Media is known to lean negative. I could rewrite that doomer-esque paragraph about the world accelerating into gloomy chaos in its mirror image, rattling off incredibly exciting achievements, ideas, and success stories that fuel a sense of optimism. In fact, we did a whole package like that here.
Yet, the topline results from the Gallup report look pretty good. Positive emotions reached a score of 71 out of 100 worldwide, the highest since the pandemic began. And negative emotions dropped for the first time since 2014. Among all age groups, young people were, by far, the best off. They experienced more positive emotions than anyone else and fewer negative ones. And in both directions, that’s been the case since measurement began in 2006... (MORE - details)