In Bhutan, technology is changing the ‘happiest country in the world’

Teenage
monks practice playing prayer flutes at the Dechen Phodrang
monastery on June 14, 2018, in Thimphu,
Bhutan.
Paula Bronstein/Getty Images
for Lumix

• Bhutan measures success not by gross domestic product,
  but by “Gross National Happiness.”
• Although Bhutan is sometimes thought of as the happiest
  nation in the world, modern problems are hurting its
  reputation.
• Technology and outside influences are slowly changing
  the traditional way of life in Bhutan.

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For years, the small Asian nation of Bhutan has defined success
not through its economy, but through happiness.

The Buddhist nation pioneered the idea of “Gross National
Happiness” to measure the country’s well-being, and supposedly,
its prime minister once touted Bhutan as the “happiest nation in
the world.”

But Bhutanese people are discovering that perception doesn’t
always equal reality. Despite the government’s efforts, Bhutan
ranked just 97th out of 156 countries in the most recent edition
of the United Nations’ World
Happiness Report list.

Part of the reason may have to do with technology. Although
Bhutan resisted it for decades, modern advances like cell phones,
TV, and computers are
slowly starting to take hold there, bringing with them
unfamiliar problems and causing old ways of life to disappear.

In recent years, TV has been blamed for everything from Bhutan’s
rising crime rate to its shifting demographics as rural residents
head for bigger towns in search of work.

“Advertisements create desires, which cannot be satisfied
by people’s current economic position,” Phuntsho Rapten of the
Centre for Bhutan Studies
wrote. “Crimes and corruption are often born out of economic
desires.”

Climate change, another modern issue, is
taking its toll on Bhutan as well. Melting glaciers are
threatening the industrial plants that provide the nation’s
energy, hampering progress in a country the United Nations
considers among the world’s “least developed.”

“We have an increasing income gap, we have increasing youth
unemployment, environmental degradation,” Needrup Zangpo,
executive director of the Journalists’ Association of
Bhutan,
told NPR. 

“We have a lot of things to worry about.”

Statistics from Bhutan’s own happiness survey illustrate the
transformation: According to the most recent
Gross National Happiness report from 2015, the number of
people reporting negative emotions such as anger, fear, and
selfishness increased from the previous survey, while positive
emotions like compassion and forgiveness had decreased.

And although 90% of respondents reported being happy overall,
it’s worth noting that almost half of them, 48%, described
themselves as “narrowly happy,” as opposed to the more positive
choices, “deeply happy” and “extremely happy.”

As progress marches on, Bhutan is going to have to learn to adapt
to modern challenges — and the shifting mood of its people.