DAY 298 - TWEET, TWEET, TWEET

DAY 298

More and more, technology is being used by scientists to  study happiness.  The latest research, published last Friday in the Science Journal, used the social network Twitter to take the pulse of world happiness.

For two years, professor Michael Macy and graduate student Scott Golden monitored the emotions of 2.4 million people in 84 countries, including Canada, through the analysis of 500 million tweets.

To get a picture of the global mood, the scientists measured the use of 1000 words indicating positive mood such as "happy", "fantastic", "super" and negative ones, such as "afraid," "mad," and "panic".

They found that positive attitude peaks first thing in the morning, but slowly dips throughout the day, before rising again in the evening and peaking again right before bedtime!    Basically, being in bed seems to be where happiness lives (the further away you get from your mattress and comforter, the unhappiest you are and as you get closer again to it, you become happier again!!!! )  The mood swing was the same on the weekends as during the week.  Therefore, the dip in happiness is not caused by the fact that people are at work.

They also found that people are happier on the weekend.  As for the time of year, it seems like we are more content from December to late June, when days gradually lengthen in the Northern Hemisphere.

Bad news, even if it happens to a complete stranger, brings Twitter users down.  The lowest points in the last two years were:  the death of Osama bin Laden, the earthquake in Japan, the London riots in August, the 10th anniversary of the September 11th  attacks and the death of Amy Winehouse.

Emotional highs, as tracked on Twitter, were the Christmas and New Year holidays, followed by Valentines Day, Thanksgiving and Easter. The wedding of Britain’s Prince William to Kate Middleton was a bright spot, comparable to Easter and Father’s Day.

Those brief posts also showed that Twitter users prefer bacon to sausage and Cheerios to Frosted Flakes.

Well, the thing is, I prefer sausage to bacon and I like neither Cheerios nor Frosted Flakes.  But then again, I have never used Twitter.  So, maybe this research is only representative of a portion of society and cannot be used as a general happiness trend. As a matter of fact, come to think about it, I also tend to wake up grumpy, with my mood improving as the day wears on!

And what about you?  What do you think about this study?

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