My work is all about how the past was better for us. People stood more; so they slept better. They ate more animal fat; so they slept better. They saw more faces in the morning and fewer faces late at night, so their mood was better. Their food had more bacteria growing on it, so their immune and digestive systems worked beter. And so on.
Past meaning 100,000 years ago. In Beijing, I am moving from one apartment (A) to another apartment (B). Apartment A is in a modern building, Apartment B is in a building maybe 40 years older. To my surprise, Apartment B is clearly better than Apartment A. The biggest improvement is that Apartment B has all-incandescent lighting. Apartment A was all-fluorescent. Exposure to fluorescent light in the evening can interfere with the faces-mood effect because it can resemble sunlight. Incandescent lamps are so much cooler than the sun that the light they emit is very different. Another improvement is that Apartment B, unlike Apartment A, has a sun deck. So it’s easy to get lots of sunlight in the morning — important for sleep and for the faces-mood effect. The third improvement is that Apartment B, like Apartment A, is on the sixth floor — but Apartment B is a walk-up. Walking up six flights of stairs will tire out my legs so that when I do one-legged standing (to sleep better) I won’t have to stand as long before getting exhausted. When I lived in Apartment A I could have taken the stairs, but I never did.
I’m surprised to hear that the Chinese were building good apartment buildings in the 1960s. I thought everything had gone to hell back then.
Chris, maybe the apartment building dates from the 1950s.
Andrew, to get the full benefit of seeing your family in the morning, it might be necessary to avoid fluorescent light in the evening.
It’s unclear whether Andrew Gelman’s comment, “For me, I don’t think so”, means that he tried a self-experiment, or, is giving his best guess.
I think he is guessing.