September 2026
Welcome back to Inflexion Point.
In this edition, we look at the world's longest running study on happiness, the ways busy people find joy, how kids feel about AI, insights from the Ig Nobel prizes, and what should remain human at the workplace.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Dr Soni
A Harvard study that started in 1938 on what makes people happy reached this conclusion: It’s not career achievement, money, exercise, or a healthy diet, but positive relationships. Such long-term relationships call for social fitness, which involves taking stock of our relationships, and being honest with ourselves about where we’re devoting our time and whether we are tending to the connections that help us thrive. The seven keystones in such relationships are: safety and security, learning and growth, emotional closeness and confiding, identity affirmation and shared experience, romantic intimacy, informal and practical help, and fun and relaxation. Take time to assess yourself on these. (Source: CNBC)
Research suggests that people find joy through achievement (recognition or a sense of accomplishment), meaningfulness (a connection to something bigger than oneself), and joy (happiness or positive emotion) in the moment. Based on a study of 1,500 Harvard Business School alumni with fulltime careers and families, it appears that how people spent those extra hours was more important than how many hours they had. The four factors that stand out in joyous people are that they engage with others, avoid passive pursuits, follow their passions, and diversify their activities. (Source: Harvard Business Review)
A recent research report by MIT suggests that teens are over four times more likely to use AI in innocuous ways than potentially harmful ones. Some are even using it to build things, whether it’s a character, a tech platform, or a tutor to help other kids study. Teens mostly use chatbots to find information, assist with homework, or pass the time for fun, rarely turning to them for emotional advice. They were introduced to AI first through their parents and schools and seem wary of its hallucinating and addictive attributes. In the words of a 17-year-old, 'I’m afraid it’s going to be the end of creativity and critical thinking.' Kids seem more aware of AI's blind spots than adults and can be instructive, rather than destructive. (Source: MIT Tech Review)
Ig Nobels are the annual awards which recognize the most absurd research science can offer. For starters, Leonard Chavas from DECTRIS Japan and Subramanian Ramaswamy from Purdue University adopt x-ray crystallography to show that cockroach milk is more than three times as energy-dense as ordinary dairy. Previous winners include scientists who rigorously proved that parents like their babies’ scents—but find their teenagers’ odors repulsive, identified the aerodynamics of nose blowing, determined what happens to 1,000 pairs of underpants buried for months at sites around the globe, and one who studied the growth rate of his fingernails for 35 years and the geologist who investigated why colleagues lick rocks. Enjoy the science that shows it's not a straight line. (Source: Scientific American)
The original aim of the first AI tool we all started using, OpenAI, was to free humans from repetitive, routine tasks that are often thoughtless and unmotivating, so we could move on to more substantial, economically valuable activities. Did it happen? As it turns out, a technology intended to relieve the blue-collar worker of his drudgery has ended up easing the white-collar worker from her cubicle. It has become a colossal miscalculation. The three aspects that could be thought of as human sanctuaries are: spirituality, empathy, and creativity. Spirituality is to know what's correct, empathy is to understand for whom, and creativity is for the how. When your boss asks you to use AI, ask yourself to be human instead. (Source: Deccan Herald)
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