This study examined the associations between public spaces, immediate environment, and momentary subjective wellbeing of children and adolescents. “Momentary subjective wellbeing” (M-SWB) refers to moments of happiness or feelings of pleasure attainment and pain avoidance during a given period of time.
Over 10,000 students (age 7-18) from 93 schools in Singapore recorded their “happy moments” over the period of a week (Monday through Friday) during their visits to Points of Interest (POIs) after school hours. The POIs included public open spaces, parks, commercial areas, sport centers, etc. Students recorded their happy moments by pressing buttons on a sensor (SENSg) they wore during the data collection period. The sensors also collected environmental information about the POIs visited by the students. Such information included air temperature, relative humidity, atmospheric pressure, light intensity, sound pressure level, and motion data.
The sensors recorded a total of 19,831 POIs. Of these, about 74% lie inside commercial areas and roads; about 5% reflect open spaces; about 4% parks; a little more than 2% water bodies; and less than 3% sport centrums. Happy moments were recorded in only 17.4% of the POIs. The types of spaces where students were more likely to experience momentary happiness included community centers, open spaces, and bodies of water. Less likely spaces were commercial areas. The odds of experiencing happy moments for those students who visited public open spaces such as plazas or open fields were 2.4 times larger than those who visited commercial areas. Most of the visits to commercial areas were less than one hour; visits to sport centers and parks tended to be longer. Spending more time at a POI increased the students' chances of reporting happy moments at those POIs. Findings showed some age differences, with primary and secondary school students being more likely to report happy moments than junior college students.
Almost 65% of the POIs were visited during daylight hours and more than 66% were outdoor spaces. There was some evidence supporting a positive link between proximity to green or blue spaces and momentary happiness, but the evidence was weak and the association not significant. This non-significant finding (which differs from previous research) may be due to the fact that Singapore has more urban green and blue spaces than most other cities. The population, then, may not vary sufficiently in terms of proximity to natural influences to show that access to natural spaces has significant and positive effect on happiness. The non-significant association between natural areas and happiness may also be due to Singapore's hot and humid climate. These climatic conditions tend to drive people indoors to enjoy thermal relief. Also differing from previous research are results showing that higher air temperatures and higher noise levels were significantly associated with more reports of momentary happiness.
One way in which this study contributes to the literature on children and their environments relates to the methodology used to collect raw environmental data with passive sensing techniques. The methodology also provided an estimation of place-, environment-, and personal-effects on momentary happiness using real time data. Additionally, this study may be “the first large-scale experiment 'in-the-wild' aimed to evaluate youth's M-SWB in Asia Pacific.” Overall findings show that outdoor places like parks and other open public areas are more likely to boost momentary happiness than commercial areas like malls.
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