This is Scientific American's 60 Second Science.

I'm Christopher Intagiyata.

One of the ugliest sites in Great Britain is a small power station outside Plymouth England,

its electrical lines and towers surrounded by a drab-colored fence.

I know this not because I've been there, but because a photo of it has scored a measly

one out of ten on an online game called Scenic or not. The game has viewers rate

photos from all over the UK on their scenic beauty. After a million and a half

ratings of more than 200,000 photos the site has classified more than 93% of Great Britain as scenic or not, or somewhere

in between.

And now a study in the journal Scientific Reports has used that data to show that our happiness increases in line with the scenic beauty

around us, which might sound kind of obvious.

But what was, I think, surprising is that we're finding that connection and built-up areas as well. So it's not just a natural

area that might have an impact on happiness, but we might also feel happier in

more beautiful areas in our cities.

Chenuki Saracina, a data scientist at the Warwick Business School and the Allen

Turing Institute.

Saracina and her team used data from the Mapiness iPhone app, which polled some 15,000 participants about their well-being a few times a day over a three-year period.

The app also pulled GPS data, which allowed Sarasota and her team to correlate happiness ratings

with the scenic or not rating of where a participant happened to be.

The team found that as scenic beauty goes up, so does self-reported well-being,

and that held true for areas featuring picturesque human-built structures,

such as bridges and interesting architecture.

...