Assumption University's Abac Poll and Srinakharinwirot University's Psychology students jointly conducted the poll, surveying 1,564 youths' happiness, leisure time and life values, from January 20 to 23.

The average GDH score was 3.52 out of 5, indicating they were quite content and the that females, compared to the males, had a higher score of happiness and gave more importance to five aspects of wellbeing, said Abac poll chairman Srisak Jamornmarn. The aspects were materialism, physical appearance, education, family and religion.

Youths living with parents also had a higher score of happiness and gave more emphasis to family values than those living with others, the latter group focusing on appearance above other things, he said.

Many youths appear to think that happiness was pretty much dependent on wealth and materialism. One third saw that having plenty of money would make them happy, one third wanted to keep their looks and belongings uptodate so people couldn't call them "out of date", and over one forth didn't like wearing the same clothes often.

As for physical appearance, slightly less than half lost confidence if they felt they didn't look good; one third believed that just being a goodlooking person meant you're already halfway to victory and some 29 per cent said their confidence dropped when someone told them they had gained weight.

For education, about 40 per cent wanted to have good grades rather than understanding their lessons, and one fourth chose subjects that yielded them good grades over the subjects that they really wanted to learn.

For family, most said their families were their rock and over half cared about what goes on with their family members and said they would help solve their problems.

For religion, about 55 per cent saw the necessity to follow religious principles, while slightly less than half believed religions helped people to rid them of suffering or functioned as their spiritual refuge. 

 The Nation