Researchers: Tweets show global happiness is down

Global happiness appears to be on a downtrend, according to a group of researchers who analyzed Twitter messages by some 63 million users worldwide.

 

The researchers from the University of Vermont analyzed more than 46 billion words tweeted by 63 million users around the globe, US News & World Report said.

Surge of  negativity  

"We're at our lowest point now in four years as far as our measure of happiness through Twitter goes," it quoted Peter Dodds, an applied mathematician at UVM and the lead author of the study, as saying.

 

He said the tweets indicated "repeated global shocks" that he said "generate a surge of negativity."

 

"For Twitter at least, it seems that happiness is predictable, sadness is not," he said.

 

Dodds and his team analyzed messages varying from "pancakes" to "suicide" then compared them to scores given to the most common 10,000 words in the English language.

 

The report said a word such as "laughter" earned an average "happiness score" of 8.5 out of 9, while the word "terrorist" got 1.30. 

 

Words like "food" got 7.44; "reunion" 6.96; "funeral" 2.10; and "hate" 2.34. Organic measurement

 

The project aimed to create an instrument that more organically measures the feelings of groups of people and how society is performing at a certain time.

 

"Just like you would use a thermometer to measure the temperature outside, [policymakers] could have this on a dashboard of tools along with [economic indicators such as] consumer sentiment," Dodds said.

 

Dodds also said the survey is not about making sure everyone is happy or increasing happiness around the globe.

 

Some degree of grumpiness is needed for cultures to flourish, he added.

 

"This is a new way of creating feedback about how we're doing collectively. It's about global self-knowledge," he said.

 

The tool at present is not available to the public, but Dodds and his colleagues plan to launch a website months allowing visitors to play around with the data collected from Twitter.

 

Gradual downward trend since 2009

 

According to the study, there was a gradual downward trend beginning in 2009, which accelerated during the first half of 2011.

 

Dodds noted spikes on terms such as "swine flu," Michael Jackson's death, the tsunami in Japan, and Osama Bin Laden's death really pushing the overall scores down.

 

Holidays, Valentine's Day

 

On the other hand, Tweeps were at their "happiest" right before holidays such as Christmas or Valentine's Day.

 

Users also tended to be happier over the weekend before plummeting to lows on Mondays and Tuesdays. — TJD, GMA News