Twitter study indicates world is happiest in the morning

People all over the world are happiest in the morning, at least that’s what the results of one US study indicate. The results came via an analysis of hundreds of millions of messages on Twitter.

The study was conducted by a team of sociologists from Cornell University who used language software to detect the presence of positive words in 509-million tweets from 2.4-million users in 84 different countries over a two-year period.

According the study, mood peaks were detected early in the morning but began to dip at around the time that most people start their working days.

A second positive peak was noticed at around midnight, followed by what the research team called a “sharp drop in NA (negative affect, including distress, fear, anger, guilt, and disgust) during the overnight hours,” in the journal Science.

The highest numbers of good mood words indicating enthusiasm, delight, activeness, and alertness were found on Saturdays and Sundays, “which points to possible effects of work-related stress, less sleep, and earlier wake time.”

The pattern, interestingly was repeated in predominantly Muslim countries where weekends are on different days. In the United Arab Erimates (UAE), for instance, the same patterns appeared on Fridays and Saturdays as seen in other countries on Saturdays and Sundays.

Although users came from across the globe, English was the only language analysed.

Intriguingly though, the digital answer to every emotion, the emoticon, was of little help to the analysis. According to the researchers, this was because “usage was too sparse to be able to detect a consistent pattern.”

According to psychological news site, Psychcentral, the researchers claim that the study is proof that Twitter can van be used as a reliable research tool.

According to the site others, however, are more sceptical, suggesting that he data is “low-lying fruit” since most people readily express the kind of simplistic emotional states found on Twitter.

Psychcentral also cautions that those viewing the study should remember that Twitter users are likely “to be younger, more affluent, and more well-educated than the general population”.

It also claims that there “are no studies demonstrating whether a Twitter user who sends messages regularly — one who ‘tweets’ — is in any way representative of the general population”.