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Can you buy happiness with a subscription to the Happify app?
Claims that using a popular positive psychology app will make you happier remain unproven after results of a large first randomized controlled trial (RCT) are in.
The surprise finding was that too few people who were randomized to receive the premium version of Happify app actually accessed it frequently enough and remained available after 8 weeks of use to provide generalizable reports of its effects.
The RCT could not demonstrate that using the Happify app more causes people to feel better and more resilient.
That important fact was not mentioned in the abstract of the article reporting the study and it contradicts what is said in a well-funded marketing campaign.
If you don’t become happier or more resilient using Happify, you are not at fault. You are having an experience that most people have. Enthusiastic endorsements and testimonials about using apps are exaggerated, false, and misleading.
The mental health and wellness app hustle
Reflecting a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign, ads for meditation apps have been showing up lately on CNN almost as frequently as the breaking new flashes. Then there is the arms race between Calm and Headspace to be the first meditation app to obtain Food and Drug Administration approval; the millions of dollars being invested by venture capitalists in lookalike mental health and wellbeing apps of all kinds; endorsements by celebrities and everyday attractive people all over social media; and the millions of people downloading and taking up mental health and wellness apps around the world.
Whether you should download and use a self-improvement app remains an emotional and usually impulsive decision amidst a gigantic marketing campaign brilliantly designed to manipulate you — compel you, even —…
