These are all hugely important questions, but getting them right is personal and difficult.
When we think of how to optimize our happiness, we often think first about the big things.
Who should be my partner?
What should be my life's work?
How you spend your free time, however, is in your control and easy to change.
There's nothing stopping you from switching from fishing to golf or baking or whatever.
And a huge amount of data shows that happiness helps you be more successful.
And these choices, as minor as they seem, actually matter a lot.
A big body of research shows hobbies kill stress, boost resilience, improve creativity, and even help us perform better at work.
and even help us perform better at work
Studies also show that the specific hobbies you choose matters.
Social hobbies, for instance, have been shown to make people significantly happier than solo ones.
People misremembered, lied, or slacked off, so the data wasn't ideal.
In previous generations, when researchers wanted to study happiness they had to ask subjects to reflect on the past and fill out labor-intensive surveys.
Now thanks to ubiquitous smartphones, researchers who want to know how happy people are at any given moment can just ping them with a 30-second survey and ask.
Thus technology has led to an explosion in the quality and quantity of data on moment-by-moment happiness.
Again, this data doesn't tell us all we need to know to design a happy life
-- eating cake might be a perfect 10 on your joy scale,
but you will likely be disappointed on your deathbed if that's all you did with your life
-- but it does offer great insight into what activities bring us the most momentary joy.
In short, many of us are really bad at choosing how we spend our free time.
So what's the verdict after scientists pinged tens of thousands of people to ask about their activities and mood, collecting millions of data points?
Out of 27 possible leisure activities listed by the researchers' app,
Just slightly above it was browsing the internet.
The only activities people liked less than being online were things like commuting, being sick in bed, and dealing with admin or finances.
and dealing with admin or finances.
"texting, email, and social media" came in dead last in terms of happiness.
What leisure activities brought people the most happiness?
It will shock no one to learn that .
sex topped the list of most joyful activities
which were next on the list
going to museums and libraries,
hanging out with friends,
