What About Staying Up Late to Watch TV?
A study of 909 women who kept diaries of their daily activities and later described their feelings in each situation finds that watching TV is more fun than taking care of children; that deadlines make people tense; and that people don't enjoy life as much when they haven't had a good night's sleep. Not exactly earth-shaking revelations, but I was intrigued by the suggestion that this new method of happiness assessment could, as The New York Times puts it, give us "a more complete picture of how new drugs…might enrich or dull the small pleasures of life."