Canterbury University's shock facts about sex and partying

Sex and drinking alcohol are most likely to make people happy, University of Canterbury research shows.

And while that may not come as a surprise to folk, postgraduate psychology researcher Carsten Grimm went the extra mile to find out what contributes most to happiness.

He used cellphone text messaging to collect data on what people did during the day and how they felt about it.

Thirty activities were ranked by pleasure, meaning and engagement.

The average of those three scores resulted in the overall happiness ranking.

Unsurprisingly, sex topped the list in all categories, followed by drinking alcohol/partying.

But while partying came second in terms of pleasure, it was ranked 10th in meaning.

Other activities in the top 10 were volunteering, looking after children, socialising, hobbies and shopping.

Also not surprising was that sickness was ranked last in terms of pleasure and overall happiness.

For meaning, however, Facebook was at the bottom of the list.

The full results:

Behaviour	Pleasure	Meaning	Engagement	Happiness
Sex	1st	1st	1st	1st
Partying	2nd	10th	5th	2nd
Care-giving	9th	3rd	6th	3rd
Meditating	8th	2nd	7th	4th
Childcare	10th	4th	11th	5th
Listening to music	3rd	17th	13th	6th
Socialising	5th	11th	10th	7th
Hobbies	4th	5th	4th	8th
Shopping	15th	16th	16th	9th
Gaming	6th	24th	9th	10th
Lower-ranked
Grooming	22nd	29th	30th	21st
Internet	20th	28th	21st	22nd
Commuting	27th	23rd	29th	23rd
Paid work	26th	15th	17th	24th
Lectures	23rd	8th	15th	25th
Texting	21st	18th	18th	26th
Studying	28th	7th	14th	27th
Housework	29th	27th	27th	28th
Facebook	24th	30th	28th	29th
Sick	30th	25th	25th	30th

Caleb Allison
Mon, 12 Nov 2012

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Canterbury University's shock facts about sex and partying