Researchers Analyze Twitter To Find Happiest Parts of the United States

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Researchers Analyze Twitter To Find Happiest Parts of the United States

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday February 20, 2013 @05:10AM from the alternatively-adhd-affliction dept.

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."

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Hawaii by CohibaVancouver · 2013-02-20 05:14 · Score: 2

Frankly, I'm not surprised. I amazed many more Americans don't live in Hawaii. I realize there are many reasons people live where they do - Family and friend connections, employment, intertia... But man, if it was easy for me to move to Hawaii I'd be there in a shot. It's just such an agreeable place - Particulary places like Kauai.
1. Re:Hawaii by eksith · 2013-02-20 05:29 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  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.
  
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  If computers were people, I'd be a misanthrope.
2. Re:Hawaii by operagost · 2013-02-20 05:37 · Score: 2
  
  I amazed many more Americans don't live in Hawaii.
  
  Yeah, I wonder.
  
  I realize there are many reasons people live where they do - Family and friend connections, employment, intertia... But man, if it was easy for me to move to Hawaii
  
  Well, those are several good reasons.
  
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  Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
3. Re:Hawaii by theakstonsXB · 2013-02-20 05:43 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Great point. Study claim is geolocated tweets *not* that people living there tweet. Seems that the vacation spots have the highest happiness. Who knew.
4. Re:Hawaii by CrimsonAvenger · 2013-02-20 06:25 · Score: 2
  
  Either way, I have a hard time believing the LA is in the saddest category....everyone here seems to generally be upbeat, happy, and glad we live in (at least in the NOLA area) a place with no open container laws, and you can get a drink 'to go' from a bar...and there's always a festival going on year round.
  And mustn't forget the Drive-Thru Daiquiri Shops...
  I think the secret to their analysis is that they didn't consider the possibility that some people are too busy partying to tweet. They're only accounting for the people who are happy, but not TOO happy....
  
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  "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
5. Re:Hawaii by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-20 06:35 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Don't believe it. I live in Hawaii, and it's not paradise. There's no work, people here nuts....
  The reason Hawaii is skewed toward being the, "Happiest state" is because of all the tourists that are tweeting. There are not that many computer literate people who live here. It ain't us.
  tom
6. Re:Hawaii by chipschap · 2013-02-20 06:37 · Score: 2
  
  Well, I live in Hawai`i and I'm pretty happy about it :) But if you want to move here --- there's a problem with the high cost of living and relatively low paying jobs, if you even find one. Someone once called it "New York prices on Midwest wages." No so easy go Hawai`i, brah.
7. Re:Hawaii by hawguy · 2013-02-20 08:49 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Living in Hawaii is not quite the same as visiting there. Hawaii is small - even on Oahu (the most populated island), you can't drive any further than an hour from home (any more than that and you're on your way back home again). If you have family back on the mainland, you're an expensive 5 hour plane ride to the West Coast to visit them - worse if you're going to the East Coast. Housing is expensive too - in Honolulu, expect to pay San Francisco rates for housing, other islands and areas farther from Honolulu tend to be less expensive. Everything is expensive there because nearly everything is shipped in. Salaries tend to be lower than mainland salaries. Electricity is extremely expensive - around 30 cents/KWh. Forget getting good deals online - many places don't ship to Hawaii, or if they do, they use expensive UPS or Fedex shipping (where the least expensive shipping method is 2-day air) - USPS is affordable if you can find a vendor willing to ship via USPS. It'll be expensive to ship your household goods, and you'll pay (mostly) by volume, not be weight, so you probably won't be bringing much furniture... it'll be shipped by boat so you won't have it for a month. You can ship your car for around $1200, and it might be cheaper to do that than to sell it and buy a new one once you get there. Don't expect to be welcomed with open arms by local Hawaiians -- Hawaiians have strong family ties and social bonds, and it's hard to really fit in until you've lived on the Islands for years, and even after you've lived there for a decade or more, you still won't always be treated as a "local".
  That said, for some people Hawaii really is a paradise and they are very happy there, but for others, Island Fever starts to set in after a couple years (or less). Before you pack your bags and decide to move to HI, spend a week (or more), with an eye toward what it would be like to live there (check out grocery and other household goods prices, car and gasoline prices, look at apartments, etc) make sure it's really right for you.
8. Re:Hawaii by cayenne8 · 2013-02-20 09:43 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Funny, Here in New Orleans our 4 seasons of the year are:
  Shrimp, Crab, Crawfish and Oyster.
  
  --
  Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Duh by tekrat · 2013-02-20 05:17 · Score: 4, Insightful

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.

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If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
1. Re:Duh by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-20 05:31 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  No if you're posting from a vacation destination you're probably happy.
2. Re:Duh by Anubis+IV · 2013-02-20 07:26 · Score: 2
  
  It's even simpler than that: they engaged in massive selection bias.
  Words like "beach" were scored with a high happiness rating, according to the paper. From there, it's trivial to see that people living closer to the beach will score higher on the happiness index, even if they're not necessarily happier, and sure enough, virtually the entire American coast is painted with happy colors on the map contained in the paper (with the exception of the Gulf Coast, which was unsurprisingly painted with unhappy colors, given that the BP oil spill was still relatively recent at the time that the data was polled).
  Another example is that "hi" was rated as a happy word, yet "HI" is the state code for Hawaii, which would obviously mean that Hawaiians simply referring to their state using the state code (which is quite likely, given the 140 character limit on Twitter) would have an artificially bumped happiness rating on their tweet. They even acknowledged this in the paper, but chose to ignore it.
  It's one thing if you want to rate words that are not associated with a location (e.g. "rainbow") as happy, but if you're going to rate common terrain features as happy, you're clearly biasing your data towards people living in regions that exhibit those features.
Happy Coincidence by bill_mcgonigle · 2013-02-20 05:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

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Prison population by Dyinobal · 2013-02-20 05:23 · Score: 4, Interesting

Louisiana has the largest prison population and is also the saddest place according to this study, coincidence?
Another study finds... by pesho · 2013-02-20 05:24 · Score: 4, Funny

... that happy people do not use Twitter.
Red states, Blue states by Anonymous Coward · 2013-02-20 05:24 · Score: 2, Interesting

Anyone else find it interesting that, in general, red states (Republican) are mostly blue (unhappy) on the map, while blue states (Democrat) are mostly red (happy) on the map?
1. Re:Red states, Blue states by operagost · 2013-02-20 05:42 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  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.
  
  --
  
  Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
2. Re:Red states, Blue states by characterZer0 · 2013-02-20 05:48 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  The republicans enjoy making angry tweets. They are just as happy, but the data analysis does not understand them.
  
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  Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
3. Re:Red states, Blue states by asylumx · 2013-02-20 06:27 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  The republicans enjoy making angry tweets. They are just as happy, but the data analysis does not understand them.
  That's odd, they don't tend to understand data very well, either.
4. Re:Red states, Blue states by liquid_schwartz · 2013-02-20 08:14 · Score: 2
  
  And Obama / Democratic party majority changed this how? In reality politicians are hostile to freedom of the masses. This applies to both parties. The current administration has extended or maintained just about everything Bush II did. Not that Bush II was justified, but the Democrats have pushed even further with targeted killings and such. We desperately need a third party with more traction to help balance this out.
Hot, Cold, Vice, Virtue by Bob9113 · 2013-02-20 05:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Utah
Hot, cold, vice, and virtue.

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1. Re:Hot, Cold, Vice, Virtue by tanujt · 2013-02-20 05:42 · Score: 2
  
  Virtue?
2. Re:Hot, Cold, Vice, Virtue by Anubis+IV · 2013-02-20 06:44 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Utah is commonly associated with Mormonism, which is generally considered to have followers who are rather courteous and virtuous, if a bit annoying with their missionaries knocking on doors.
Does not match up well with Gallup by Attila+Dimedici · 2013-02-20 05:51 · Score: 3, Interesting

Gallup does a "well-being" poll (the factors they use to determine "well-being" correlate pretty well with happiness). While the Gallup poll agrees that Hawaii is the "happiest", the rest of their poll comes out significantly different. For example, the Twit survey from this article has Florida as above the median for happiness, the Gallup poll has them third from the bottom. Another example, this Twit poll puts Maryland near the bottom, while Gallup puts it near the top. The real problem with the Twit survey is that states that are vacation destinations will have a disproportionate representation of people who are not involved in their daily grind. I suspect That not only are people who are on vacation more likely to be happy, those that are Twits probably tweet more while on vacation.

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Comment removed by account_deleted · 2013-02-20 09:19 · Score: 2

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