There is a lot of talk in our culture at the moment about declining attention spans and the use of media, and then comes along a study showing that people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and spending less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier.
The small study, published by Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona, shows the relationship between happier people and deep conversations, but not cause and effect. But that should not stop you from observing for yourself if you can increase your daily happiness by engaging more deeply with others. Let me know how it goes.
Here is the link to the article describing the study, where you can also read some very interesting comments:
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/talk-deeply-be-happy/