Have you heard of the Swiss company that installs laughter detectors?

“The average adult laughs about fifteen times a day, which is why we figured four laughs in two hours should be possible; anything less is insufficient,” explains Alexandra Toscanelli, project manager, in an interviewExternal link granted to the South German newspaper.

Baloise has established a “Chief LOL Officer” (“laugh out loud”) in the offices of a client with ten employees. If someone isn’t hitting their giggle quota because they’re stressed or – who knows, maybe working – the manager LOL will know. It uses a microphone and artificial intelligence (AI) to measure sounds in the environment, and if it senses a lack of cheerfulness, the employee will receive an email.

According to Alexandra Toscanelli, it could be a meme, a video of a cat falling off a table or an unwanted scooter antics. She admits cat videos aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but a specialist social media agency has compiled ‘the best of the internet’.

What makes the Swiss laugh? Do they like to laugh at themselves? Here’s a light-hearted look at the famous Swiss sense of humor:

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Alexandra Toscanelli refutes the idea that it is a joke. “But I’m happy if it makes people smile,” she said. The device should also encourage laughter, but we’re primarily interested in how much laughter there is. And if there isn’t enough, we motivate employees to laugh a little more, at least we hope so.”

But isn’t it possible to pretend to laugh and keep the LOL manager from distracting you? “We trained the AI […] using real laughter, explains Alexandra Toscanelli. Yesterday we installed the device in the test company. We coughed and laughed artificially to fool the AI; it worked. But even fake laughter is beneficial for mental health. Serotonin [une hormone qui améliore l’humeur] is always released as soon as the laughter muscles are activated.

Mental health

The aim of the project is to improve mental health, with small and medium-sized businesses being one of the target groups. Absenteeism and mental health are important issues, not least because they are costly for businesses. According to La Bâloise, Swiss companies lose 6.5 billion francs per year because the mental health of their staff is affected.

“We still talk much less about mental problems than about a broken leg,” says Alexandra Toscanelli. The latter, however, recognizes that “laughter is not the solution to everything. We also need contacts, emergency telephone lines and help centers.

Former Minister of the Economy Johann Schneider-Ammann knows something about the health benefits of laughter. He made headlines in 2016, when, as President of the Confederation, he gave a speech on the occasion of National Sick Day on the theme of laughter.

“Laughing is good for your health, according to a popular saying. Like me, you have certainly already experienced this,” declared the President of the Confederation in his speech. A fairly fair observation – nothing to say about that. But if this video has gone viral, it is on the form, not on the substance of the message.

Okay, we don’t necessarily expect politicians to have a sense of comedy, but if you don’t speak French, you might believe that Johann Schneider-Ammann was announcing the diagnosis of a progressive illness. terminal. He still made people laugh; mission accomplished then.

And to be honest, the kindly Johann Schneider-Ammann actually has a sense of humor. Here he is, a few weeks after the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States in 2016. He is then asked if he has spoken to his new counterpart across the Atlantic. He replies no, but that he wrote a letter to congratulate him. He then explains how it happened (starting at 0.30 in the clip below): “The day before the election, I received two letters on my desk and was asked to sign them both. I signed one. And the next morning, I had to sign the other one…”

Another Swiss politician who went viral is former Finance Minister Hans-Rudolf Merz who, in 2010, made Parliament laugh by providing information on meat imports and sales of… BB-Bündnerfleisch! Even if you don’t speak a word of German, if you don’t laugh – or at least smile – while watching this short clip, the manager LOL won’t be able to do anything for you.

Text translated from English using DeepL/op

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