People are confused, lost, looking for external reasons to hope

In short, they're depressed because they don't believe they can be effective, and as a result, they generate a self-fulfilling prophecy.

New research shows that in a social network, happiness spreads among people up to three degrees removed from one another. That means when you feel happy, a friend of a friend of a friend has a slightly higher likelihood of feeling happy too.

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When framing the question differently, the study found that you are 15 percent more likely to be happy if a direct connection is happy, 10 percent if the friend of a friend is happy, and 6 percent if it's a friend of a friend of a friend.

CNN

Low numbers. My guess: they didn't differentiate between happy and "appears happy." If someone else in your social group appears happy, well, everything can't be all bad can it? It's a distraction. Very funny sleight of hand by a researcher who will now publish his "groundbreaking" and "uplifting" book, sell it to millions of depressed people, and then move very far away from them and have no contact with them. LOL PWNT