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The Guardian’s bogus claim about money, long commutes, and life satisfaction
by forwardslash

    Whenever I see an article that cites academic research in an oversimplified, generic way, one of my hobbies is to dig into the source papers to see if those glib statements are accurate1. For example, here’s a journey through an article that states that we supposedly get approximately the same type of pleasure from talking about ourselves on social media as we do from having sex.

    Having said that, naturally this paragraph from The Guardian’s The secrets of the world’s happiest cities intrigued me:

    Stutzer and Frey found that a person with a one-hour commute has to earn 40% more money to be as satisfied with life as someone who walks to the office.

    This seemed exactly like the type of sweeping statement that every journalist thinks they can get away with because really, who’s going to read a 40-page academic paper to see if it’s true?