To become happier this year, UF student Edith Perez said that she will be striving to make more friend connections.
Students around the nation have determined what will make them happier in 2015 compared to last year, according to a study conducted by Stop Procrastinating, the leading productivity website blocker.
The findings are based on a survey of 1,000 students who created a list that included the 10 most popular activities, personal goals and events that they want to change in their lives to become cheerier this year.
“Based on these findings, it seems that our generation is moving toward a more positive light and away from the egocentric sphere we appear to be in,” Perez, a 19-year-old philosophy and criminology freshman, said.
Students appear to want to spice up their romantic lives in 2015, as “a meaningful relationship and/or to change partners” landed at No. 1.
Alicia Baker, a GatorWell health promotion specialist, wrote in an email that seeing this goal at the top was promising.
“For years, there has been an increased awareness of what is now called ‘hook-up culture,’ where people will casually make out or have sex with no relationship or commitment, and I think some students are emotionally exhausted by that,” Baker said.
Also listed was getting more sleep, seeing less war, having less debt, making more real friends, cooking more and even spending more time studying.
Dr. Frederic Desmond, a research assistant in UF’s Department of Psychology, thinks that happiness is a transient state and that it is not realistic or healthy to be happy all the time.
“Looking at the study, I see that students are not trying so much to find happiness in their life this year, but more of a balance,” Desmond said.
[A version of this story ran on page 4 on 1/16/2015 under the headline “Study shows student happiness resolutions for the New Year"]
