I Tried the Happify App When Life Was Overwhelming—But It Didn’t Make Me Happier

My life is changing faster now than it has since I graduated college. In one summer, I am starting a new job and moving across the city during one of the worst housing markets in recent memory, all while recovering from leg surgery. Although most of these changes are positive, I'm fraying at the edges. I wanted to find an app that would help me cultivate habits that would maintain my mental health as I go through these transitions. And, in theory, Happify should have done the trick. 

At first glance, Happify seems like it’s the ideal mental health app. It's relatively affordable, available on iOS and Android devices, and bursting with researched-backed activities. In fact, the Happify website says that the app’s "proven techniques are developed by leading scientists and experts who've been studying evidence-based interventions in the fields of positive psychology, mindfulness, and cognitive behavioral therapy for decades.” Yet, after using the app for a month, I wouldn't recommend it. While the app educated me on the psychology of happiness and provided a variety of activities that research shows bolster positive emotions, the execution left something to be desired. Read on to learn more about why my experience with Happify was lackluster.

How I Signed Up

Downloading the app was free, and I could have started using it for free since there was free content available. The free content included a sampling of the activities and resources available on the app, ranging from mini-games to articles about the science of happiness (followed by a short quiz) to challenges like going on a mindful nature walk. All of these activities are backed by research on positive psychology, which claims that even though humans have a natural tendency towards negativity, our brains can change and adjust to new ways of thinking that affect our outlook and the way we live our lives.

How I Used the App

Once I’d signed up for the paid version, I first had to decide whether to use the app privately or join its online community, a feature available to free members as well. For the first half of the month, I used the online community but didn't find it helpful. Every time I visited the community page, I faced a series of posts that varied from encouraging stories from people's mental health journeys to confessions from random strangers that should have come with content warnings for experiences such as domestic abuse. After two weeks, I turned the feature off. 

One example of those was “In the past month, how often have you felt joyous, exuberant, inspired, or awestruck?” Although I expected to receive a follow-up assessment within a week or two, I was never offered another survey during my experience. I would have liked to track the success of the app (or lack thereof) with another survey.

Once I completed the survey, a screen popped up that looked like a messaging app. Several messages appeared instantly and they were from my “therapeutic assistant,” Taylor, explaining that they were my “personal Twill guide” and would be helping me through some of the activities and checking in with me (Twill is the company that owns Happify). I was then forced to respond “Nice to meet you 👋” (emoji included) because that was the only option available. 

After that, they explained that they would show me how to “get the most out of Twill based on the personal needs and preferences [I chose] to share.” I was then only had the option to respond “Sounds good,” upon which they explained that I could type “I don’t know” if I ever needed help and that they were learning as they go and asked me to be patient if they make a mistake. They also said that everything I told them was confidential. The only option I had was to reply “Got it” and “I’m ready” when they asked, “Ready to begin?” 

Then, Taylor asked me a series of questions to personalize my track for me, such as, “What hobby or activity brings you the most joy?” (I doubt they actually knew what sled hockey is) and which negative emotion (from a multiple-choice list) I wanted to reduce the most.

Also, I suspect that Taylor is an AI chatbot, not an actual human being, but I have no way of knowing this for sure, which is alarming on its own. I’m generally wary of AI chatbots being used in mental healthcare. And my fears are not without evidence: According to this NPR story, the National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) shut down its human-run helpline in favor of an AI chatbot back in May. The program ended less than a day later when the chatbot began offering weight loss advice. Need I say more?

I doubt that Taylor, if they are an AI, was designed to replace a helpline. However, their affirmation that our interaction was confidential reminded me of what a therapist would say. No one should view an AI as a therapist, even though there are a few AI-powered apps now in addition to Happify, like Woebot app and others.

Using Happify’s Tracks

Once I’d finished my conversation with Taylor, I had to choose which “track to follow.” At first, I wasn't sure what the app meant by "track." I guessed (correctly) that each track was a different set of activities, but I don't know how much the tracks differed from one another. Each one had a title that suggested the goal of the activities in the track, the name of the therapist who created the track, and a description of what the track was designed to do. However, there was no indication of what each track actually entailed. Some of the tracks were marked “recommended” and/or “digital coach.” Since the icon beside “digital coach” matched the one Taylor used in their messages, I skipped those tracks altogether. 

The dozens of tracks offered varied in theme, from those focusing on sleep to coping with stress to fighting loneliness to dealing with racism. As a former creative writing major, I chose the "artistic" track in hopes of being able to write my way through my big move. 

There were three main types of activities in the tracks I chose: short articles and videos about the science of happiness followed by a quiz, mini-games and activities that I could do on my phone, and activities directing me to implement a skill in my real-world life. Each activity earned me points toward one of six stats: "savor," "thank," "aspire," "give," "empathize," and "revive." After earning a certain number of points in any given skill, I would level up that skill and gain access to harder mini-game levels. 

If I didn't do enough activities in a certain timeframe (I think it was a week, but the app never clarified), the app notified me that I had run out of time to get a medal for my track, so I simply chose to continue with the same track. 

Depending on the type of activity, each exercise took anywhere from under two minutes to several hours. Some required upfront planning (like saving money all week to spend on a special occasion), while others I could do during my morning bathroom routine. 

Each day the app would present me with around three activities to complete and list the ones that would be available in the coming few days. There were also a few activities I could do whenever I wanted via the “instant play” feature: the mini-games, the savor challenges, a guided meditation, an option to send a compliment to a friend via provided images, and a breathing exercise that used the camera to track my heart rate. 

There was also a tab at the bottom of the screen that I could click to gain access to seemingly endless articles about mental health (called “The Upside”). I could filter the articles by topic and even sign up to receive them in my email inbox if I wanted to. 

Every time I opened the app, I didn't know what to expect or how much time to allot for a given activity. For the more free-form challenges, if I was presented with something that required planning, I would often put it off for days at a time. The shortest activities were the articles/ and quizzes, but five minutes after completing them, I would forget what they said.

In addition to the variability in the exercise length, the stats system wasn't reinforcing because it didn't emphasize skills that felt improbable. For example, the app offered several exercises that involved listening to nature sounds while watching an endless video loop of a beach or forest. Not only did the audio not always work, but each exercise ended with me earning points toward my "savor" stat. Because the entire exercise happened via my phone, I didn't feel like I savored anything. Also, how can you get better at savoring things? You can get better at remembering to savor things, but that's not what those exercises were doing. This made the stats feel meaningless. 

These all reminded me of games you could buy from the app store, but with emotional language attached to them. The most common was an Angry Birds knockoff that had you shooting down puff balls labeled with negative emotions instead of pigs. 

I loathed it. I have a strange obsession with watching YouTube videos about video game design, despite the fact that I'm an infrequent gamer. Because of this, I knew what makes Angry Birds an addictive game. The Happify designers did not. The levels started off far too difficult for someone who had never played the game before and didn't teach the mechanics clearly. Furthermore, the stones I used to hit the puff balls were too small for my already small fingers, which made the game more of a fine motor skill test than a puzzle game. 

To be clear, video games in general have been shown to have positive effects on mental health, including potentially preventing some cases of PTSD if played immediately after a traumatizing event. However, those studies use games created by professional game designers who know how to make games engaging. There's nothing engaging about a cheaper version of a game I played when I was in middle school. 

At the time, one of my current roommates was having a hard time finding new roommates to replace the people leaving our apartment (including me). They're a woodworker who has a deep respect for termites. So, I drew them a cartoon picture of a termite after researching what the bugs look like, and wrote "May the termites bless you on your housing quest." 

Before starting the task, I was overwhelmed by the process of finding an apartment. The entire affair felt outside of my control, despite how many hours a day I spent talking to my new roommates, texting our broker, and scanning web pages for available places.

Once I gave my roommate the drawing and got a big hug from them, I felt like I had some control over the housing process, even if it wasn't my housing process. 

Pros and Cons

While Happify taught me several strategies to improve my happiness, my experience was tainted by poor game design and unpredictability. These are my pros and cons for the app as a whole.

Final Thoughts

Happify didn't make me happier. I could see it helping someone out of a depressive rut because it forces you to take action. However, I wasn't depressed. I didn't need more things to do—I needed ways to get my head out of the housing-panic cycle. This was probably why the most effective exercises were the ones that got me off of my computer and away from apartment listings. And, while the app purported to track my happiness, I was only offered a happiness survey at the beginning of the experience.

I expected a well-organized experience that would tell me what to do and roughly when to do it. Instead, I was presented with too many options at almost every stage, without a clear understanding of how the options differed from one another until I chose one. Although the exercises provided a great amount of variability, they were too unpredictable to schedule into my day. 

While Happify's website accurately states that the app uses strong science to support users' well-being, it fails to mention how poorly that science is delivered. If you're thinking of trying Happify, spend that $15 on a fun video game and a book about the science of happiness instead. It will take you much further.