Smiling For A Picture Didn’t Become Popular Until The 1950s. Why?

On May 31, National Smile Day encourages everyone to wear their best smile!

Wear your best smile to this party as we celebrate National Smile Day every year on May 31. Founded by dentists Dr. Tim Stirneman and Jim Wojdyla of Compassionate Dental Care in Lake in the Hills, Illinois, this day is meant to, you guessed it, “Share with the world what the power of a healthy smile can do!” The best part, this day heralds the beginning of National Smile Month!

• 1700s – French portraits of people show smiles with teeth, which is a new occurrence.
• 1702 – French priest and educational reformer Jean-Baptiste de La Salle publishes “Rules of Christian Decorum and Civility,” which advises against smiling and laughing, since they are ‘indecorous’ displays of emotion, according to him.
• 18th Century – This is a turning point in social practices.
• 1950s – It becomes the norm to smile in photographs.
• 1962 – In Tanzania, students at a school break out into fits of uncontrollable laughter, which eventually spreads to their parents and their acquaintances
• 1982 – The first email smiley face was sent at 11:44 am on September 19, 1982.  The message was not originally saved they were able to retrieve a copy 20 years after the fact.
• Smiling has a direct link to our brain and can help to reduce stress.
• Smiles are infectious. A healthy smile can develop confidence and generate a new outlook on the world.
• The motto of World Smile Day is “Do an act of kindness. Help one person smile.”
• Even artificially produced smiles have been shown to induce happiness. So saying “cheese” for a photograph works.
• It takes 37 muscles to frown. And 22 muscles to smile. So Smile. It conserves energy!
• Smiling is more contagious than the flu! It can’t be resisted.
• Babies are born with the ability to smile
• Babies smile about 400 times a day, while, on average, adults only smile about 20 times.
• At only nine or 10 months of age, babies have learned to offer fake smiles to strangers, reserving real smiles and laughter for people they are comfortable with.
• Women smile more than men.
• The average woman smiles 62 times a day.
• The average man smiles 8 times a day.
• There are 19 different types of smiles.
• 47% of people notice your smile first.
• We buy 14 million gallons of toothpaste each year.
• Around 50% of people will smile back if you smile at them.
• Smiles are the easiest facial expressions to recognize.
• People can recognize smiles from up to 300 feet away, making it easier to identify than any other facial expression.
• Forcing yourself to smile when you’re sad will actually elevate your mood.
• “Smiling is believed to boost levels of serotonin, even when the smile is forced. Serotonin is a natural stress reducer in the brain,” according to 123Dentist Inc.
• A study on why people laugh found that 80-90% of all laughter is in response to simple statements like “It was nice meeting you”, or “I’ll see you later.”
• Smiling helps people live longer. Studies have shown that intense, genuine smiling is associated with a longer life span!
• If you’ve ever wondered why older portraits often showed unsmiling people, it was because people in that era had a lot of tooth rot caused by sugar and a poor diet. Plus, more common was the aristocratic perception that smiling and laughing was indecorous, and showed a lack of self-control or good manners.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

Useless Daily

The Homet

BuzzFeed

National Today