Twitter 'Mood Map' Tracks The Nation's Happiness (VIDEO)

Researchers from the Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Sciences and Harvard Medical School have developed an innovative way of tracking the nation's mood using tweets.

Their study, "Pulse of the Nation: U.S. Mood Throughout the Day Inferred from Twitter", scanned over 300 million tweets, sent between September 2006 and August 2009, for emotionally charged language, then developed color-coded cartograms showing the mood of each state over the course of the day (the redder the color of the state the worse the mood, the greener the happier it is).

A few highlights from their findings:

• The "early morning and late evening" have the "highest level of happiness."

• The West coast is "significantly happier" than the East coast

• Weekends are "much happier" than weekdays.

See their visualization of the mood changes in the video below.

WATCH:

Comments

[Thomas Retterbush]

09:22 AM on 08/10/2010

This is but a preview of our future. The time will come, when everything is known about everybody anytime and all the time. Good bye anonymity. Goodbye freedom. It's like something out of a H.G. Wells science fiction novel.

[Trittydi]

11:41 PM on 07/26/2010

Scientists know that the incidence of chronic disease increases the further you get away from the equator - and that would include depression. That's the Vitamin D3 effect.

If you look at the map it is tempting to say that could also be part of what is reflected here. Then allow for economic hardship and abject poverty to have an impact on the population.

Just interesting to consider these factors.
*

[pattybaked]

10:50 PM on 07/26/2010

yeah i'd be pissed off all the time if i was using twitter too.
oh wait

[LMPE]

02:59 PM on 07/26/2010

the clip doesn't download

[carrotroot]

11:07 AM on 07/26/2010

NY seems to be a permanently piss-off state.

[Matt Fischer]

11:46 AM on 07/26/2010

we really are a rather sour bunch.

[kinogod]

04:05 AM on 07/26/2010

Of course we arehappiwr here on the west coast, but we'd be happier if we could afford to live in manhattan!

[rmutt1917]

09:59 PM on 07/25/2010

Isn't the use of (and especially overuse of) Twitter an emotional malady of sorts? I would think the inability to be alone w/yourself is a better measuring stick of "unhappiness" than what emotionally charged words you broadcast into the jabbering canyon...echo...echo...echo...

[WSS61]

08:36 PM on 07/25/2010

The better educated the individual the more that person lives in (sometime grim) reality. Ignorance can really be bliss, but it can shield you from the harsh realities of life for only so long. Easterners score higher on SAT scores, and read a great deal more.

[Jacqueline R]

07:07 PM on 07/25/2010

I am not shocked by the results. The Western side of the United States has always seemed much more relaxed than our Eastern counterparts. Plus, we have better beaches and weather.

[NickHP]

05:05 PM on 07/25/2010

I meant Louisiana, Oklahoma, Idaho...that N/S line of states in the center of the country

[NickHP]

05:03 PM on 07/25/2010

Looks to me like the 'politically RED' states are never happy.

[Jacqueline R]

07:09 PM on 07/25/2010

It seems like that to me but then again I have always felt the really conservative people have a lot of anger, whether or not it is expressed or repressed, which cannot be good for mental stability.

[angry expat]

09:29 AM on 07/25/2010

=put head in hands, wondering when intelligence died

[Andman0121]

08:13 AM on 07/25/2010

This study serves another purpose too: it points out how many ret@rds there are per state who use Twitter.

[Me atlast]

08:17 PM on 07/25/2010

It also points out drinking habits... if you watch the times of the day, you can see when people are feeling good, then cross the line into drunken rants....

[Morgantheaxe]

07:14 AM on 07/25/2010

There is a lot of stretching going on here. I dont mean the distortion of the map either. This appears to be serious junk science.

[larmarch5]

02:19 AM on 07/25/2010

I'm shure someone will refudiate these findlings. WnkWnk