Abstract:

Why does the world need more joy?

We are more connected than ever before, with advances in smart technology meaning that we have the world at our fingertips?we can converse with people on the other side of the world in seconds. Wireless internet is fast becoming another human right alongside food, shelter and electricity. As such, we are bombarded with instant connectivity to international conflicts, new anxieties surrounding the need to be online and instantly contactable by many different people at all times of the day, and many more negative experiences derived from this that we have not yet named, which is taking a toll on the levels of joy around the world. There are now news outlets dedicated to only promoting positive and joyful content, which would normally be missed out in favour of higher-priority negative news that the more popular media organisations might deem to be more important in the prime-time news space. These positive news outlets are doing their best to counteract the sheer amount of negativity the global population consume on a daily basis, but that isn?t enough. The world?s joy and happiness levels are severely depleted, and there aren?t enough people looking into how we can improve this to regain the necessary balance between negative and positive experiences.