A new iPhone application offers to help you understand how happy you are, and what makes you happy, by tracking what factors are associated with your personal happiness.
The TrackYourHappiness application is actually part of psychology research being performed by Matt Killinsgworth at Harvard.  The site identifies the mission of the project as a
“new scientific research project that aims to use modern technology to help answer this age-old question. Using this site in conjunction with your iPhone, you can systematically track your happiness and find out what factors for you personally – are associated with greater happiness.”
Upon signing up for the program, [...]

We were already aware that most big companies monitored their employees – checking up on their web-surfing habits and reading the occasional email – but with a newly developed algorithm, Google is attempting to take the idea of personal productivity to the level of personal psychology. In an effort to identify unhappy staff, Google’s program sorts through personnel files – appraisals, salary and promotion history – to determine who might be ready to leave. The algorithm operates under the assumption that employees who feel underutilized are the most likely candidates for seeking new jobs, giving management an opportunity to intervene [...]

At some point the anonymity of the internet transformed into a social networking clearinghouse of daily minutiae and most of us willingly opted in, choosing the ease and comfort of virtual intimacy over a lonely existence of real world disconnectedness. And these communities blossomed, starting with close friends and family then expanding to include co-workers and long lost childhood chums, finally welcoming obscure acquaintances and total strangers with whom we’ve never had a face to face conversation. We decided that to know and be known was a good thing, but never really thought it through.
And now, regardless of who these people [...]