No laughing matter - Telegraph The people of Norwich have an unhappy distinction. They laugh just 5.4 times a day on average, which makes them the most sombre souls in the country. At the other end of the laughometer come the people of Leeds, who push the dial up to 8.7 daily laughs. Sounds impressive. But the boffins warn that even this effort falls well short of the "healthy benchmark" that is, apparently, 15 laughs a day for adults (pre-school children can get through 400 a day without any trouble). Does that mean we are gloomier than we used to be? Apparently so. Research suggests that 60 years ago we would spend as much as 18 minutes a day laughing, but that is now down to a paltry six minutes. But that would imply that each registered laugh lasts the best part of a minute. Surely, nothing is that funny.