How Credible Is This New Study Which Finds That Birds Give People As Much Happiness As Money?

Greg Goldman who is Senior Director at Audubon and Adjunct Professor at University of Pennsylvania (a former professor of mine) shared a Study about Birds and people via #LinkedIn. The New study finds birds give people as much happiness as money (View the study here: https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/mental-health/544722-new-study-finds birds-give-people-as-much-happiness)

But, the study’s conclusions are too general and does not consider other factors that helps to make bird watching for [some] people as beneficial as having real money to spend. Only some people find bird watching fun, rewarding & a happy escape—people with money or have other aspects of their lives taken care of. People who don’t have money who must work hard to make ends meet don’t have time to escape to watch birds. The poor & marginalized struggle to survive, with very little to occupy mind with the leisure’s of life such as bird watching, when their minds are in the economic tensions of life. The study is deceptive, using general language saying that a particular thing provides the same results to people in general when it is only certain people that claim this, and does not include the specifics of the people it study to arrive at such broad conclusion. People who have time & money who are bothered by the complexity of having too much money may find bird watching just as rewarding as money. But people who live pay check to pay check—the majority of Americans—bird watching does not provide the answers to their life that is any opium of comfort that rival what they want —money to survive so that they can bird watching!

Actually, upon further reading, I realized that the Study was done in Europe where its happier to live. Yet the study has an headline that is general and misleading, as if that’s the picture of the world. Exactly, where? In Europe; but where in Europe, amongst what people’s and their incomes, we don’t know. And what about here in America, what does the study reflect? In fact what does the study shows worldwide not just in Europe and what’s the take aways of this specific and limited study?