Twitter research proves Floridians are the happiest

[Blackford Oakes]

I'm going to roll with this because I can imagine some SOB tweeting in his thermal underwear from some more northern lattitude.

Researchers from Havard and Nortwestern have researched twitter data over the last three years and somehow measured the temperment of the nation via tweet volume. What I've been able to to decipher from their research is a correlation of the number of tweets from a geographical area can determine the mood of national regions. Supposedly, more you tweet, the happier you are. In cartograph fashion, the video converts these areas into national Greenlands. The mood swings are represented by color. Green being the happiest, while those closer to a shade of red don't bode too well.

The video below depicts the mood of the nation during the course of the day. Florida never dips into any shade of red during the course of the day. California seems to maintain higher shades of green for longer periods. The edge goes to Florida by a bit.




* I'm begining to wonder if @vicequeenmaria's participation in twitter is skewing the numbers.

[coach]

So, the other day, I tweeted, "If you do not love living in Miami, you are doing it wrong," which I really believe. Honestly, I was expected to get slammed by all the haters. Now, maybe it is just that I have a rowdy bunch of followers, but I actually got a ton of positive retweets, tweetbacks, and comments. A couple people even picked it up and used it as their Facebook status. I was really surprised. I got one negative comment, that was it.

[Jess]

So, the other day, I tweeted, "If you do not love living in Miami, you are doing it wrong," which I really believe.

I love that tweet! And it is true

[crcossel]

Yep. We could tell when we visited. I think it's all the sun and vitamin d! Can't wait to be a Floridian.

[leswatts]

I think living in Florida is great, the landscape is beatufiul, the climate is nice and I also love the people. Floridians are very positive and motivated, that's my impression at least, and I always enjoy talking to people from FL, had a lot of great talks with Floridians. Espeically the ones that live at the sea, having a beach right across the street is something that make you see life in a differernt way.

[Jess]

having a beach right across the street is something that make you see life in a differernt way.

I live by the beach, and it is one of the best things about living here. I go running on the beach and every time I do, I am guaranteed a different view of the amazing sunset. Can't beat that.

[Doug]

What's weird to me about this visual is that the green appears to stop right at the state line. It would also seem that there would be variations within the state. They must be compiling all the state data together. Also, other factors might affect the outcome in this study: are there more computer users in any particular locale? Do the average ages of the twitterers change from one place to another? What constitutes a happy tweet vs a neutral tweet? Could a person tweet something happy in order to overcome anger or depression? This is a little subjective...

[rk]

Hmm... Florida may be the happiest, but Miami is apparently the 6th most miserable city (of the 250 largest US cities) according to Forbes:

http://www.forbes.com/2010/02/11/ame...le-cities.html

It's not good when Gary, Indiana, is a lot less miserable than your city.