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The impact of the positive psychology movement on digital health has been an underemphasized contribution on the field. Marty Seligman was an early figure in developing and evaluating interventions using the Internet and some of the earliest studies of positive psychological interventions used online recruitment and dissemination. We discuss some aspects of Seligman's legacy through his contribution in the digital health space and borrow from lessons in Seligman's teaching to provide guidance to the field. Both authors were graduate students of Seligman in the mid-2000s and provide these lessons through the lens of working in the Seligman lab during this period. These lessons include the importance of collaborative and interdisciplinary work, focusing on the future rather than looking to the past, communicating simply and clearly, and opening the doors for others whenever possible. Through widespread dissemination, digital health is one tool to help increase the total tonnage of human happiness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which discusses several articles in the issue on topics including future of positive psychological interventions; research of Positive Psychology Intervention (PPI) on patients; and the challenges of conducting PPI in school settings.

Happiness-increasing interventions demonstrate significant variation in outcomes, suggesting that the people who use them might be as important as the interventions themselves to determine efficacy. In light of this, instructive interventions might not be necessary to increase happiness given a population with knowledge of happiness-increasing strategies. We recruited 270 participants with knowledge of positive psychology to receive six weeks of online psychoeducation. We explored participants’ use of the website, reported use of happiness strategies, and changes in well-being. Those who spent more time on the website reported smaller changes in well-being than those who spent less time on the website. Conversely, those who reported employing more happiness strategies reported greater increases in well-being than those who used fewer strategies. This shows that for those already familiar with positive psychology, information, rather than instruction, might increase well-being. This has implications for studies evaluating the efficacy of happiness-increasing interventions more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As PPI research embraces the use of the Internet, it is incumbent on the research community to keep up with the ever-evolving best practices in online intervention research. This paper provides an overview of current practices in online positive psychological intervention (OPPI) research and suggests improvements to those practices. Drawing from the broader online intervention literature, the paper outlines important considerations in the design of OPPIs (including user engagement, dosage, and free choice) as well as in their empirical evaluation (including sample selection, statistical approaches, and comparison groups). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]