Remember to smile: design of a mobile affective technology to help promote individual happiness through smiling

Wellbeing plays a central role in quality of life and encompasses aspects pertaining to mental and social wellbeing, as well as physical wellbeing and the absence of disease. Building upon the natural human understanding that smiling is an expression of happiness, studies have shown that the process of smiling in a genuine manner can help to improve an individual's happiness. To date, approaches that measure happiness have relied upon subjective self-assessment using one of a wide range of questionnaires. However, more recently, Affective Technology has emerged that provides the potential to move towards a more objective assessment of happiness. This paper describes a proposed study aimed at evaluating a bespoke smartphone-based affective technology that attempts to promote happiness through smiling, by reminding participants to smile on a regular basis.