Facebook photos predict future happiness, study says

Can the way you smile in a Facebook photo today indicate how happy you will be four years from now?

Psychologists from the University of Virginia say yes, according to an article by Misty Harris in The Vancouver Sun. They found that men and women who wore “intense” smiles in their Facebook photos from their first semester of college reported greater satisfaction with their lives than those who didn’t.

These same students were also more likely to report high levels of contentedness during their last college semester three and a half years later.

According to Harris, study co-authors J. Patrick Seder and Shigehiro Oishi “say the findings are particularly noteworthy because they’re based on informally shot photos, yet reach the same conclusions as earlier literature using formal portraits.”