Where would you have a better life?

If you want to know which country to live in to enjoy life more go to the OECD better life index. They  have identified 11 key factors such as health, education, earnings, and sense of community. You can decide how important these are to you. After I’d scored my choices and pushed the buttons it [...]

Facebook – no global domination just yet

Megalomaniac Mark Zuckerberg must have been really annoyed when he read in the Independent that his creation is not the most popular social networking site everywhere in the world (assuming he ever reads an actual newspaper). Rhodri Marsden’s Cyberclinic column spelled it out: Facebook hasn’t yet “connected the world”. An Italian blogger has pulled together data [...]

Those you have read – top 10 in 2010

When you first sit down to write a blog you hope people are going to want to read it – unless you plan it as a private journal where you can unburden yourself or have a rant at the world (OK so occasionally I have a rant too). So it’s great for me that so [...]

So much social networking, so little time

Malaysians have the most “friends” on their social networks, according to a study in 46 countries, with an average of 233 followed closely by Brazil with 231 and Norway with 217. In Japan the average is only 29, perhaps reflecting cultural differences about what friendship really means, and 68 in China (no surprise perhaps given [...]

Living together apart (LTA) on the increase

Living together apart (the topic of my first post on this blog) has increased by 40% over the last ten years. According to Halifax Home Insurance and there are now a million such relationships – or 1 in 20 couples with almost 1 in 5 of these “live-apart-ners” 35 or older. The main reason they say they [...]

1 new partner = 2 fewer friends

Get a date but lose a mate? Well two actually according to Robin Dunbar’s research. He’s a social anthropologist at Oxford and I’ve quoted him before back in May in my post “So many friends but still lonely”. He argues that when you start dating or get married you lose 2 of your friends because you [...]

More (real) school friends = more earning power (maybe)

Did you know that the more friends a child has at school, the more they will probably earn later in life? A study by Essex University published last year shows that for each extra friend a pupil had at school, their salary 35 years later was 2% higher. The research adds to growing evidence that [...]

What makes you happy – part 2

Despite what England fans might feel right now football competitions can make you happy as I said in an earlier post – but only in the short-term – and only if you are the host country. But even that doesn’t make you as happy as a good marriage. Married people are happier than single people (it could be [...]

Football & happiness – a game of 2 halves

    Football can make people happier. Two economists tried but failed to prove that football was good for a country’s economy. But when they looked at national pride and happiness they got better results. They looked for changes in life satisfaction in 12 European countries over 30 years up to 2004, and especially looked at [...]

Green-eyed monster at work

Jealousy and envy are closely related but jealousy is usually when you wish you had something someone else has got eg a pay rise, or a plum project, and envy is when you haven’t got it and when you wish they hadn’t either. Envy is also about feeling inferior, being resentful, and wishing ill-will to others. [...]