  Most individuals in social networks experience a so-called Friendship
Paradox: they are less popular than their friends on average. This effect may
explain recent findings that widespread social network media use leads to
reduced happiness. However the relation between popularity and happiness is
poorly understood. A Friendship paradox does not necessarily imply a Happiness
paradox where most individuals are less happy than their friends. Here we
report the first direct observation of a significant Happiness Paradox in a
large-scale online social network of $39,110$ Twitter users. Our results reveal
that popular individuals are indeed happier and that a majority of individuals
experience a significant Happiness paradox. The magnitude of the latter effect
is shaped by complex interactions between individual popularity, happiness, and
the fact that users cluster assortatively by level of happiness. Our results
indicate that the topology of online social networks and the distribution of
happiness in some populations can cause widespread psycho-social effects that
affect the well-being of billions of individuals.
