Researchers Analyze Twitter To Find Happiest Parts of the United States

Nerval's Lobster writes "If you live in Hawaii, congratulations: according to a new study (PDF) by researchers at the University of Vermont, you live in the happiest state in the union — at least as far as Twitter sentiment is concerned. (Hat tip to The Atlantic for posting about the research.) The researchers — affiliated with the University's Department of Mathematics & Statistics, Complex Systems Center, Computational Story Lab, and Advanced Computing Core — collected 10 million geo-tagged Tweets from 373 urban areas across the United States in 2011 and ran them through a system designed to tag each on a scale from 1 (sad) to 9 (happy). According to the study, the five happiest states include Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Utah and Vermont; the five saddest are Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland, Delaware and Georgia. In general, the West and Northeast seemed much happier than the Mid-Atlantic and South—with the exception of Florida, which shaded 'happier' than many of the surrounding states. While the researchers admitted their study's limitations, there are certainly a lot of opportunities for refining the model: for example, if Hawaii's status as a vacation state affects its rate of 'happy' Tweets, or if incorporating languages other than English into the dataset would affect the ultimate results."

Duh

[tekrat]

So, lemme get this straight... If you live in a tropical paradise, you're happier than if you live in a state with a depressed economy and terrible weather.

In other news, grass is green.

Happy Coincidence

[bill_mcgonigle]

That the Univerity of Vermont researchers' methodology indicates that Vermont is among the happiest states.

Re:Hawaii

[eksith]

Yes, but don't forget, a lot of people *visit* Hawaii as well, which would really add to those Tweets. Who doesn't let the world know they're enjoying their vacation these days (or suffering, whichever the case). I mean it's a lovely place to be, if you're already well off or have the means to support yourself. As you added, employment and inertia are key here, since you can keep in touch with friends and family over Skype.

Re:Red states, Blue states

[operagost]

I would find it interesting if that were actually the case. You think that New Jersey, Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Ohio are Republican-controlled states? And Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, and Florida are Democrat-controlled states? That's enough to take the words "general" out of it.

Re:Red states, Blue states

[characterZer0]

The republicans enjoy making angry tweets. They are just as happy, but the data analysis does not understand them.