Miles of Smiles

A professor has a plan to spread smiles around the British isles. Give the guy credit — this is no easy task when you consider the U.K. is the place where people give you odd looks or wonder if you’re drunk if you smile at strangers or seem excessively happy.

Professor Richard Wiseman, of the cute-baby-will-get-your-wallet-returned experiment, is conducting an online happiness experiment this week. He’s asking the British to visit scienceofhappiness to read about four get-happy hints. Visitors to the site  will be randomly assigned one of the four to try, and then rate its effect on their mood.

Wiseman is hoping once a website reader’s spirits are lifted, he or she will spread the joy to others. How will he measure that? By conducting a national poll  before and after the five-day study.

"No one's ever tried cheering up a whole country before, and it's the right time to do it with everyone feeling gloomy from the recession," he told the U.K.'s Sky News. "Potentially somewhere like London, which is densely populated, you might find people smiling a lot more. It's a mad idea, but it might just work."

Here's hoping it does.

Photo courtesy of Althepal, via Commons Wikimedia.