07 May Happiness and…Facebook!
Facebook statuses reveal happiness
by Samuel Axon from CNN (click here to read the original article)
Facebook has extended its “Gross National Happiness” prototype app to 18 new countries. The app analyzes words in status updates like “awesome” or “tragic” to track changes in the collective emotional state of its users.
When Facebook applied the methods to its U.S. userbase last year, it found that happiness went way up on holidays and way down when celebrities like Michael Jackson or Heath Ledger passed away. While the results of the study weren’t surprising, the idea of using status updates to measure national happiness was a novel one.
After Facebook’s latest update, the list now includes the U.S., Canada, India, Great Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Singapore, Austria, Germany, New Zealand, Italy, Chile, Uruguay, Spain, Mexico, South Africa, Argentina, Australia, Ireland, Venezuela and Colombia. Status updates in the English, Dutch, German, Italian and Spanish languages are included in the data.
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