How To Be Happy Anywhere

"I really resent the fact that, in my older age, I care way too much about politics. Causes me nothing but stress."

How much? I found stressing too much was unhealthy (since I have little or no control over these machinations) but I need to keep an eye on it, get angry once in a while about how the terrible decisions have a real and negative day-to-day effect on how I live. I'll remember it next time I squeak in the ballot box.

As for the article, appears that it does indeed come down to your community and/or family - emotional, economic and physical well-being come down to how your community (the physical community around you rather than any online/remote association) regard you.

Do you live a lonely, densely urban existence where if you don't work you starve? Or do you have a community around you who would, to an extent, entertain your whims to pursue goals other than the perennial career/home/toys/family name franchise path?

There's also the pursuit of crap you can't take with you, but is that necessarily a dichotomy? Maybe there's an unhealthy weight placed on the toys and widgets we geek types surround ourselves with... I like to think I have a healthy relationship with these things but I know if someone took my ZX Spectrum away I'd be pretty miffed.

Could be, could be... we saw people today flying into a rage because they couldn't get their hands on a cheap, underpowered Linux box. Did they feel their happiness actually depended on acquiring this widget?

I'm sure he used randomized blind statistically significant samples in each location to come to the conclusion that there were fewer smiles in the Chinese neighborhood. And he conducted experiments with isolated control groups to come to the conclusion that this was caused by the TV in their living rooms.

While I generally find myself agreeing with the sentiments of this article, let's not forget: the plural of anecdote is not evidence.

Apply this axiom to OP's observations. So he goes to some rural regions of the world, sees some kids being kids and concludes that because he doesn't see that same behavior in a modern region of China it must therefore be because of modernity or technology or whatever that these people aren't happy. But wait, how does he know they aren't happy? Who is he to say that because he "didn't see a smile" among them they must therefore be hopelessly depressed? Equally how do we know that because he saw some kids playing in the street these communities are "happy"? I could use some of my own anecdotes, experiences I've had in the barangay of the Philippines that would contradict his observations despite having the same hallmarks, but again, these are anecdotes and even if you have a large set of them they still aren't a supplement for evidence.

The crux of this article is weak. Based almost entirely on the touchy-feely reality of observational anecdotes. Again, I don't disagree with some of the broader points. But this article is not a good example of a case supporting them.