39 yrs later (special 'didn't send correctly' edition)

Technical issues again today folks. Sorry about that. It looks like many thousands of you didn’t get the newsletter this morning.

It’s a bummer because today’s edition is really quite good: lots of interesting data from the happiness survey, plus charts and graphs and cool stories. (Also, to everyone who emailed to make sure I’m alive and well this morning, thank you! I’m fine!)

On that note, I’ve been thinking of trying something new—so let’s just do it. Each morning, I’ll record a quick preview of the newsletter that you can hear by calling (424) 245-5687.

I’m a geek; that number is also 424-BILL-MURphy. Don’t worry, it’s a recording and I won’t pick up, but it’s also a good way to verify that the newsletter actually went out if you don’t see it. (Consider this to be in beta—and let me know how long it takes to answer for you!)

With all these tech issues lately, we might have to make some technical or platform adjustments. They cost money. So if you’re not a paid subscriber and would like to help me figure this out and keep Understandably alive, please consider an upgrade.

With that, I’ll get out of the way and re-share today’s newsletter. Hopefully this won’t double-send, but will go only to the people who didn’t get it previously.

As promised yesterday, we have more data from the reader happiness survey to share. Today, we’ll focus on four questions that many of you answered:

I know this isn’t exactly a peer-reviewed study, but I think I’ve learned a lot about you all (and me!) from this exercise. The idea came largely from this much-quoted observation from the Harvard Grant Study:

So, let’s start with the question about number of “good friends” and happiness.

First of all, there were 2,144 overall responses to the survey; 2,086 answered the question asking about the number of “good friends” they have. Some data points:

But, I also had no way to follow-up, since this was an anonymous survey. So, c’est la vie.

The blue columns below represent self-reported happiness according to number of reported friends; the maroon line that looks like a spaghetti strand displays how many people reported having each number of “good friends.”

Like many good data compilations, these points lead me to want to know many other things. I’d love to hear your theories in the comments:

OK, next up: Happiness and work satisfaction.

A plurality of readers reported work satisfaction somewhere between 7 and 9 on a scale of 1 to 10. Not too shabby.

We’re also using a broad definition for the word, “work,” because we probably have 5 to 10 percent of readers who say are retired, and an even greater number who are stay-at-home parents. Looking at the comments, I’d define this as basically: “the way you spend your days in order to support the life you lead.”

In general, work satisfaction seemed to correlate with self-reported happiness, but not quite as closely as number of friends.

It’s also interesting to note that people who reported their work situation as a “1” reported higher happiness ratings than people who said their work was a “2” or a “3.” We didn’t have a ton of replies at this level, so take it for what it is. But, still.

Again, we get some of the same kinds of questions as I had above:

Finally, for today, we have answers to the question: “If you think about your best friend, where did you meet him or her?” I started to hint at these yesterday.

This one was a bit of a challenge to compile, because I asked open-ended questions.

But, I’m pretty confident in my characterizations. For example, if someone said, “my best friend and I have known each other since we were 8,” I categorized this as “grade school,” even though they didn’t specifically say they’d met in school.

We had 2,053 answers, and the results basically look like this:

As you can see, “work” is a plurality at 28.7 percent, but that’s only if you divide “grade school/earlier,” “high school” and “college” into separate categories.

Here’s everything in a table–where people met, and the percentage of replies:

The “other” category was fun. First off, some of you tell very specific stories. Second, a surprising number of people said they met someone via a dating app or dating site, found there was no romantic chemistry but that they liked each other as friends, and now count that person as their best friend.

Also, I’m glad we had the discussion—wait, was it yesterday? yes, it was yesterday—about the bowling and Gallup surveys on having a best friend at work. Some of you readers are more familiar with these studies than I was (the Gallup one particularly).

In short, as one reader put it, it might be that people who have “a best friend at work” are happier and more productive, but that’s not the same thing as saying that their “best friend” in the world is someone they happened to have met at work.

Fair point. Finally, I was going to show you the correlation between reported income and happiness, but: (a) today’s newsletter is already getting long, (b) I just realized I made a small mistake in organizing that data and I’m too tired to keep messing with it tonight, and (c) the good news is that this is a daily newsletter so we can always revisit it.

Bottom line teaser on that point, however: For the readers of Understandably, money doesn’t directly correlate with happiness. Nowhere near as close as friendships, anyway.

To close this out, I have to share just a few of the descriptions some of you shared with me about meeting best friends. There are so many fun, joyful, sad, and poignant accounts—probably every other emotion, too. Feel free to reply to me if I picked one of yours (remember, these were all anonymous), or to chime in at the comments.

Thanks for reading. Want to see all my mistakes? Click here.