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Marie Briguglio, University of Malta, Malta
Two questions, twenty four hours, three hundred and sixty comments, a handful of insights and one conclusion that echoes the results of several scholarly research studies: environmental quality matters to well-being in the highly urbanised context of Malta.
The exercise was intended to stimulate some ideas for a future study and not intended as scientific research in itself. I simply posted a question in social media as follows: “Think of your typical day. What instances reduce your well-being?”. I received dozens and dozens of comments, almost all from people in Malta. I coded the comments and aggregated them. The day after, I tried it a different way. I asked “Think of your typical day. What instances improve your well-being? Again, dozens of comments which I coded and aggregated. On both occasions I asked my followers to “think of your answer before reading others” although I cannot exclude that some social influence could have occurred.
Within the limitations of an obviously skewed sample (limited to people who are active on social media, literate, understand English), and of some plausible self-censorship by contributors who may have limited themselves to issues they felt they could talk of publicly, a handful of fairly clear insights emerged. The exact phrases that people came up with were fed into a word map generator.
Firstly, social interactions (other people) seem to be key factor responsible both for stimulating well-being and for suppressing it. At the very least, these seem to be very salient in people’s minds. Something like a third of the comments received were of this nature – “random acts of kindness”; “a friendly wave” as opposed to “ungrateful people”; “negative attitude, nagging and complaints”; “pure selfishness”.
On top of this, family and children also emerge as both a cause of well-being and a source of its reduction – “seeing my husband and son at the end of the work day”; “my dog’s welcoming lick”; the smell of my children’s hair” versus “silly arguments with hubby and kids”; “kids’ homework and study stress”; “the moment you lose sight of your child in a crowded place, even if it’s only for a minute”. Intriguingly, children are frequently referred to as “kids” when mentioned in the negative frame!
Secondly, health issues, sickness, pain, and more generally bad food, lack of exercise and a sedentary lifestyle made up about a tenth of the comments – “minor ailments like headaches, sore throat, stuffy nose, period pains”; “manageable pain and a comfy bed at the end of the day”; “looking at my ever increasing waist line in despair”; “flare-ups of my chronic condition”; “junk food”.
Lack of time, stress, anxiety, rush were mentioned by a considerable number of people while leisure, sleep and exercise were mentioned as positive issues – “finding time to do something creative”; “an afternoon nap”; “my glass of red wine”; “tea and a good book”; “a long walk”; versus “the rat race”;