UBC scientists one-up Lou Reed, unveil the template for a Perfect Day
At some level, this whole One Big Day project circles around the abstract concept of The Perfect Day. If such a thing were possible, what might it look like?
The question might make more sense if we were sheep. Presumably, sheep would all wish for the same sort of thing out of a day (freedom to roam, fresh grass, not big slaughtered). For we humans, in all the wild variety of our energies and proclivities, and the nature of our jobs and home lives, there couldn’t possible be an answer.
Or could there?
Recently, social scientists at the University of British Columbia took a swing for the fences. Crunching data from the American Time Use Survey, wherein many thousands of subjects reported how they spent their time across more than 100 activities, a kind of hive-mind happiness profile emerged.
Best Day Ever?
Here’s the formula:
BDE = FAM₆ + FR₂ + SOC₁.₅ + EX₂ + EAT₁ – WRK₆ – TV₁ – CMT₀.₂₅ *
In plain English, that’s
- Six hours spent with family
- Two hours with friends
- An hour and a half socializing
- Two hours dedicated to exercise
- One hour for eating and drinking
- A short six-hour workday
- Less than 15 minutes spent commuting
- Only one hour on screens (TV, phones, computers, tablets)
* “–” denotes tipping points where enjoyment decreases.)
Musk-ovites, are you listening? The proper amount of the day we should be devoting to work is less than 25 percent.
Dunigan Folk, the UBC psychology graduate student who led the study, spoke to the India News: “By understanding the optimal doses of common activities, we now know more about the recipe for a good day—and by extension, the recipe for a good life.” (The tenured professors are probably gnashing their teeth. This work is still pre-press and it has already gone viral. I heard about it on the syndicated NPR news quiz Wait Wait Don’t Don’t Tell Me.)
I think that we are so seduced by idea of secret ratios – that the optimal life is like the blueprint for the perfect chocolate-chip cookie, every ingredient in its correct measure – that we’re willing to suspend our disbelief to entertain them.
But as the saying goes, if you believe a joke contains a truth, you’ll be right more often than not. Any survey with an N this large must tap into something universal in the human heart.
Now I’ve gotta go get to the gym.
