New study rocks conventional wisdom as surfers revealed to float Australian economy

"Using data from the Australian Sports Commission, which shows there are more than 720,000 active adult Australian surfers..."

“Money can buy material things, but real happiness must be truly earned,” proto-hippe Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote back in 1750 and the sentiment has since been baked into fact. It is assumed that the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck with their multi-millions and gigantic homes are miserable and, frankly, it seems thus.

Well, in an absolute shock to grumpy locals, the largest study of its kind found that surfing increases happiness, at least in the United Kingdom.

“I’m always smiling, and the joy I feel for the rest of the day after being at The Wave has made me a much nicer person to be around according to my wife,” one Welshman told researchers. “To say (surfing) has changed my later life is an understatement,” a Scot added.

Now, in a striking Commonwealth connection, it has been revealed that Australian surfers inject wads of cash into the economy each and every year.

Per Phys.org:

The researchers found surfing injects almost $3 billion into the Australian economy each year. The research is published in Marine Policy. Co-authors Asad Yusoff from ANU and Mark Lane and Katja Verreydt from Surfing WA contributed to the findings.

“We asked participants how much they spent on domestic travel and how often they’d traveled to go surfing during the last 12 months, but also how much they spent on new boards, wetsuits and other surf-related accessories,” survey lead Dr. Ana Manero, from ANU, said.

“Our research shows adult surfers spend more than $3,700 per person, each year.

“Using data from the Australian Sports Commission, which shows there are more than 720,000 active adult Australian surfers, we found that surfing injects at least $2.71 billion into the economy each year.

“This is a conversative figure at best because it doesn’t factor in overseas visitors who travel to Australia to go surfing or money generated through professional surfing.”

So, if money buys surfing and surfing equals happiness then Jean-Jacques Rousseau has finally been dubbed a hack.

Viva la revolution.