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Utah in the top 5 of happiest states
and with so many non-Mormons in Utah being so unhappy, that must mean the Mormons are even happier than their ranking!!
😆 Great point about overall internet usage, Brown. I had never seen that stat and considered it in that way.
hawkgrrrl wrote:All of these types of stats indicate a correlation, but you can’t necessarily conclude exactly why. As Ray pointed out on the highest number of paid porn subscriptions, is that because everyone’s a porn freak in repressed Utah or because they are so gol darn honest that they pay for it whereas everyone else is not “subscribing”?
Quote:It also has the highest index on: – porn addiction
Or is it just that in Utah, if you look at porn you are considered addicted whereas everywhere else, if you look at porn, you are considered normal?
I absolutely believe this to be the case. creating an absolute abstinence standard for porn and alcohol creates the illusion of addiction and the dysfunctional attitude towards te behavior, thus accelerating the addiction. it’s quite a paradox.hawkgrrrl wrote:I read that Salt Lake City is the 4th in signing up for AshleyMadison.com (a site where adulterers can meet other adulterers to hook up). But another side to that is: 1) more in Utah marry vs. cohabitate, so more people qualify, and 2) the state’s population is younger.
i cannot see the logic here. i wonder if this is related to some of the bizarre wife-swapping going on…hawkgrrrl wrote:High in divorce? Yes, but the flip side is (as mentioned above), they are more likely to marry vs. cohabitate, and to marry young (which does correlate with divorce).
agreed.hawkgrrrl wrote:High in prescription drug usage, including anti-depressants? Yes. But that’s because unlike “normal” people, Mormons are more likely to go to a doctor with depression rather than a bar.
interesting. i think they’re missing out, though…bar-keeps are often good therapists, in a way, and cheaper, per hour, than the professional kind.I suppose we have to include NMFs… non-Mormon factors. As the FAIR link rightly points out, a lot of Utah isn’t that LDS now, especially SLC, we’re not just talking inactives but people whose family were never ever LDS.
What else can we point to as NMFS?
* Geography – incl. isolation, altitude, population density.
* Economy – nature of industry and local resources. Also student population.
* Climate – including aridity and winters.
* General American influences.
Although sometimes FAIR is trite, it handles this issue well. It makes the interesting point that sex shops and print p*rn are not widely available in Utah so this drives internet usage up –
http://en.fairmormon.org/Utah/Statistical_claims/Pornography_use_in_Utah It also points out that Utah isn’t that much above the lowest state.
I suppose the isolation of Utah is a factor in this.
Utah has the highest rate of…..awesomeness. 😆 Everywhere has its good and bad points. When I think of Utah, the bad doesn’t immediately spring to mind, the incredible desert and mountain scenery does. Surely Utah and Idaho and Nevada include some of the best landscapes in North America. No real coastal scenery perhaps, but Utah does boast an inland sea of sorts.
Mormonism aside, Utah is more of a draw than Delaware and Detroit.
I finally posted on this topic (related to this topic anyway). You’ll have to see what you think: http://www.wheatandtares.org/2013/03/19/simple-answers-to-complex-questions/ hawkgrrrl wrote:I finally posted on this topic (related to this topic anyway). You’ll have to see what you think:
http://www.wheatandtares.org/2013/03/19/simple-answers-to-complex-questions/ Interesting points, one thing that often gets left out of these discussions about Utah is just how many of the people here are actually non-Mormons or inactive members that are typically relatively non-religious people but are still counted as LDS. Supposedly only about 60% of the people are still LDS in Utah. Personally I would be surprised if more than 40% of nominal Church members are currently active in most neighborhoods and it could easily be significantly less than that in Salt Lake County as a whole. So there could actually be less than 24% of the population here that are actually actively involved with the Church and many of these don’t have current temple recommends.
Maybe that is still higher than any one denomination in any other state (even Southern Baptists in Alabama and Mississippi) but my point is that just how Mormon Utah really is anymore looks like it is often greatly exaggerated. I do think Mormons can have a disproportionate influence and often end up discriminating against non-Mormons and less faithful Church members simply because of the number of devout Mormon business and political leaders here plus they are generally more united in their values and agenda than any real opposition here. So there are all kinds of laws here related to alcohol, porn, etc. that are very different from any other state that I know of.
These differences are also one reason why it wouldn’t surprise me if online porn is more popular in Utah than other states not just among active Mormons (especially because it is easy to hide) but completely inactive Church members and non-Mormons as well because in some other states you can see magazines like Playboy and Penthouse at regular newsstands and bookstores but here they are usually kept completely out of sight and the last I heard you can’t buy hardcore movies here at all. So if you have to drive all the way to Wendover, Nevada or Evanston, Wyoming to shop for some fresh porn it certainly makes sense why there would be more of a market for internet porn here than other states for that reason alone.
I’ve lived most of my church years in the “mission field”. I’ve lived in Utah and Idaho for about two years combined so far. I think Utah is very Mormon. Thoreau wrote:I’ve lived most of my church years in the “mission field”. I’ve lived in Utah and Idaho for about two years combined so far. I think Utah is very Mormon.
Maybe so but that’s because most Western states are less than 10% Mormon and Idaho is less than 30% and the US as a whole is less than 2% Mormon. So by comparison Utah will definitely seem very Mormon dominated but my point is there are enough non-Mormons and inactive members here (actually the majority) that I don’t think you can simply discount them all when looking at statistics for the entire state and then try to make direct connections to the Church (good or bad) as if the majority here are typical practicing Mormons.
Another interesting dynamic that is not talked about that much is what effect having so many devout Mormons in one place has on non-Mormons and inactive Church members. For example, there was one study where they were trying to say that active Mormons had a higher life-expectancy than non-Mormons but the interesting thing about the statistics was that they actually showed that the life-expectancy of non-Mormons in Utah was significantly lower than non-Mormons nationwide and when compared to national statistics it sounded like the life expectancy of active Mormons was not significantly higher than any other non-smokers.
Utah is divided radically between the Salt Lake Valley metropolitan area and the rest of the state. Salt Lake City itself now is less than 50% LDS (members of record); in most of the smal, rural towns outside that area, the LDS population (members of record) can be as high as 90-100%. Generally, the LDS percentage increases as a direct function of distance from SLC, with it holding relatively steady once you get away from that valley. There are some exceptions, like Eureka – a mining town about an hour or so southwest of Provo that always has been predominantly non-LDS, but the general pattern holds true.
In my ward boundaries as a teenager, there were two non-LDS families – labeled as “NM” on the house-by-house map of the ward that fit on one side of an 8.5×11 piece of paper. Town of 2,000 – 4 wards – no other churches in town – maybe 20 people who actively affiliated with a differnt denomination. I attended a high school in a neighboring town, and my graduating class was about 225 students. There probably were more, but I was aware of ONE non-LDS student in my graduating class. Those towns are a little different now – but the very large majority still are members of record. (That is true of lots of small towns in this country, if Protestant replaces Mormon in the desciption – and even more so if it is broadened to include both Protestants and Catholics.)
Currently, there is MORMON UTAH, and there is Utah. They are two very different places.
OK. I was thinking impressions and culture shock on my part. You were talking more statistics. I am probably still sensitized after not growing up LDS and living in non LDS areas. One of my daughters is doing a research project on obesity in the United States, and I was surprised to see that Utah has one of the lowest rates in the country – one of only three with a rate of under 25%, along with Oregon and Minnesota. All of the states over 35% are traditional southern states. Lots of oil-fried, breaded foods, no doubt – and the subsequent genetic predisposition from generations of it. Utah also has the lowest average age. Younger people are typically less overweight because they haven’t had time for the slight overeating to catch up. Could be as simple as that.
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