--- title: Our Obsession with Happiness Is Making Us Miserable description: Our obsession with happiness is making us miserable, scientists want to enhance empathy for Earth in decline with virtual reality and more. canonical: https://time.com/4517919/our-obsession-with-happiness-is-making-us-miserable/ author: TIME article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-04T16:00:15.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T04:59:27.126Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Our Obsession with Happiness is Making Us Miserable og:description: These are today's best ideas og:url: https://time.com/4517919/our-obsession-with-happiness-is-making-us-miserable/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Our Obsession with Happiness is Making Us Miserable twitter:description: These are today's best ideas twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Our Obsession with Happiness Is Making Us Miserable by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Oct 4, 2016 4:00 PM UTC by [The Aspen Institute](https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/) ## The Aspen Institute Oct 4, 2016 4:00 PM UTC **1\.** [**Our obsession with happiness is making us miserable.**](http://www.vox.com/first-person/2016/10/4/13093380/happiness-america-ruth-whippman) By Ruth Whippman in Vox **2\.** [**With virtual reality, scientists want to enhance empathy for Earth in decline.**](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/03/virtual-reality-project-lets-users-see-life-as-a-doomed-cow-or-piece-of-coral) By David Matthews in the Guardian **3\.** [**Do the race categories on the census need an update?**](http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/30/white-house-wants-add-new-racial-category-middle-eastern-people/91322064/) By Gregory Korte in USA Today **4\.** [**Why remember your password? Just transmit it through your body.**](https://www.onthewire.io/your-body-is-a-wonderland-for-transmitting-passwords/) By Dennis Fisher in On The Wire **5\.** [**Doctors connect people to policy. They should vote.**](https://www.statnews.com/2016/10/03/vote-doctors-politics/) By Dhruv Khullar in STAT  [_The Aspen Institute_](http://www.aspeninstitute.org/) _is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, D.C._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4517919/our-obsession-with-happiness-is-making-us-miserable/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4517919/our-obsession-with-happiness-is-making-us-miserable/"},"headline":"Our Obsession with Happiness Is Making Us Miserable","datePublished":"2016-10-04T16:00:15.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T04:59:27.126Z","description":"These are today's best ideas","url":"https://time.com/4517919/our-obsession-with-happiness-is-making-us-miserable/","keywords":["Innovation","medicine","Happiness","earth","Passwords","Census"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"The Aspen Institute","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/the-aspen-institute/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/innovation/","name":"Innovation"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4517919/our-obsession-with-happiness-is-making-us-miserable/","name":"Our Obsession with Happiness Is Making Us Miserable"}}]}] ```