- Professor Paul Dolan said iPhones and tablets distract us from our loved ones
- He warned people could suffer 'mental illness' unless they 'put them down'
- In a talk on happiness he also said the married and religious are generally happier
- Men in their 40s are among the most unhappy, he said
By Amanda Williams
PUBLISHED: 04:24 EST, 28 January 2013 | UPDATED: 04:26 EST, 28 January 2013
The secret to happiness is turning off your mobile phone and concentrating on your friends and family rather than text messages and emails
The secret to happiness lies in turning off your mobile phone and concentrating on your friends and family rather than text messages and emails, an expert on happiness has said.
Professor Paul Dolan, of the London School of Economics, believes that the popularity of iPhones and other smart phones has seen people constantly having their attention drawn away from their nearest and dearest and to the devices instead.
He warned that unless people changed their behaviour, they could suffer mental illness as a result.
He told an audience at the Hay Festival - a celebration of culture and social responsibility - in Cartagena, Colombia that there are also now mental conditions called internet addiction and Phantom Vibration Syndrome - where you have a phone in your pocket and you think you have got a text message but have not.
He said: 'We're constantly having our attention distracted and distraction is a cost.
'When you switch tasks it requires attention. Paying attention to what you're doing and who you are with and turning your phone off and enjoying being with your friends is much better for you than constantly checking your phone and checking emails', The Telegraph reports.
Prof Dolan was once a member of the Cabinet Office's Behavioural Insight Team – or Nudge Unit.
It was set up to suggest small ways that people could change their way of life to improve it.
He said the solution could lie in introducing small changes to the environment in which people use their mobile phones.
He used an American game called 'Don't be a d*** at dinner' - where people put their phones and tablets in the middle of the table as an example.
The first one to use it has to pay for everyone else's meal.
He said it was easier to 'change the environment you were in rather than the person you are'.
Professor Paul Dolan warned the extraordinary popularity of smart phones has seen people constantly having their attention drawn away from their nearest and dearest and to the devices instead
In his talk on happiness, Prof Dolan also pointed to research that people who are married or have religious faith are happier than single people or atheists.
But he did warn that married couple's happiness is relatively short-lived lasting for about 'three years'.
Prof Dolan added separation was much worse for married couple's happiness than divorce because of the uncertainty it caused.
His advice to anyone going through a break-up would be to 'make decisions quickly' adding that once a divorce is finalised people's happiness quickly rises.
Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa has also said society faces the prospect of an 'authoritarian nightmare of a world controlled by technology'
Prof Dolan said happiness can have little to do with people's wealth.
A recent survey rated Columbians as the happiest people in the world, despite having an average income of just £5,000 a year each.
He said that middle-aged men in their forties are among the unhappiest that levels of satisfaction start to rise once people reach their fifties.
Recent research showed that monkeys have mid-life crises too, he said.
Prof Dolan's concerns about the effects of modern technology were echoed at the festival by Mario Vargas Llosa, a Nobel prize winning Peruvian author.
The author told an audience that unless high culture reasserted itself in the face of television and computers, society would face the prospect of an 'authoritarian nightmare of a world controlled by technology.'
The number of text messages sent in Britian each year is around 38.5billion.
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