Why laughter is not a common sound at the workplace

That worklife is no laughing matter appears to be corroborated by a recent study done by two Stanford University academics, who found that cachinnations start becoming less frequent from a median age of 23, or about the time when people get jobs. Whether or not the researchers’ prime conclusion — that laughter is “under-leveraged” in offices and can be a gamechanger, professionally, if properly utilised — is solid enough to take Humour Seriously (also the title of their book), it is true that laughter is not exactly a common workplace sound.

It is heartening that their survey of the daily laughing habits of 1.4 million people from 166 countries showed that four-year-olds did so up to 300 times a day. But their additional finding that 40-year-olds clocked up that same number over 10 weeks is a sobering statistic. Of course, if that cohort also laughed as frequently as four-year-olds, it would be quite alarming, not to mention distracting, in workplaces.

That laughter is often the best medicine is well-known; that understanding the power of humour is as important for a successful career as, say, mastering financial trading strategies, may also be borne out by fact one day if this pair’s findings are taken seriously. Meanwhile, we are all ears about their contention that levity can be used positively in workplaces.