This just in from the University of Useless Studies: We love sex more than housework

Sex ranked first in the three happiness categories of pleasure, meaning and engagement

Using Facebook and doing housework both ranked low on the happiness scale



It seems anyone who claims something is 'better than sex' are in a minority, after a study found making love is the most enjoyable human activity.

Researchers used text messaging to build up a map of what activities people routinely rated as bringing the most and least happiness to their daily lives.

They found that sex ranked first in all three categories measured in the survey: Pleasure, meaning and engagement.

Sex tops the survey: Making love was found to provide the most pleasure and meaning of all daily activities

Drinking alcohol or partying came second in terms of pleasure but only 10th in terms of meaning.

Feeling sick was lowest rated in terms of pleasure, while surprisingly using Facebook rated last in meaning.

The study was compiled by Carsten Grimm from the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.

With depression levels hitting all-time highs in western societies everyone from academics to governments have become interested in ways to measure and track happiness.

He said: ' So far governments around the world and media have focused mainly on life satisfaction in the discussion about well-being; it turns out happiness is a far more complicated topic.

'One of the areas I’m researching - orientations to happiness - looks at whether there are different ways of going about seeking happiness.



'Psychologists have proposed that individuals may seek to increase their well-being through three main behavioural orientations; via pleasure, via engagement, and via meaning.

WHAT MAKES US HAPPY: THE RESULTS

TOP-RANKED ACTIVITIES

WORST-RANKED ACTIVITIES

1: Sex 1: Recovering from sickness 2: Drinking alcohol 2: Facebook 3: Volunteering 3: Housework 4: Meditating/religion 4: Studying 5: Caring for children 5: Texting 6: Listening to music 6: Going to lectures

7: Socialising 7: Paid work 8: Hobbies 8: Commuting

9: Shopping 9: Computer work 10: Gaming 10: Washing







'Endorsing pleasure as a way to happiness means you enjoy 'eating dessert first' or you focus on feeling good and enjoying sensory pleasures.



'Engagement is what you experience when you’re totally absorbed in what you’re doing; either skiing down a hill or being immersed in your work. People call this experience a state of flow and this may be a dominant orientation to happiness for some people.

' Having meaning in a person’s life was a way to pursue happiness; being part of something bigger and contributing to the greater good.'

Mr Grimm used mobile-phone text-messaging to collect data on what people did during the day and how they felt about it, a technique called 'experience sampling'.



'I texted people three times a day over a week and the response rate was really high,' he said.

'People are never far from their cellphones these days. People replied to on average 97 percent of all text-messages, and texts were sent at random times, so there is a really rich sample of everyday life to look at.



'From my research I can see what activities are routinely rated as highest and lowest in people's daily lives. Having sex is (no surprise) highest on all measures of happiness.

'Being sick is again, no surprise, relatively low on all measures. Going to lectures, or studying, is low on pleasure and happiness, but ranks relatively high on meaning.



'The results have implications for what psychologists have called `the full life’.



'Those who tend to be high on all three orientations to happiness not only score high on life satisfaction, they also tend to have higher experiences of pleasure, meaning, engagement and happiness in their daily lives.



'This means that being able to seek happiness in different ways may enrich your everyday experience and increase your overall well-being.

