Twitterers in the Mist

Researchers at the Northeastern University College of Computer and Information Sciences, along with researchers from Harvard Medical School, set out to determine how happy or sad Americans are at different times of the day and week by looking at happiness indices implied in Twts - NYT

Some of the results are more obvious than others. For example, during the workweek people are happier in the early morning and late evening, before and after the daily grind.

Researchers also observed interesting geographic results. People sending Twitter messages on the West Coast seem happier “in a pattern that is consistently three hours behind the East Coast.” Over all, judging from a video the researchers created, when Twitter users are upset, the most negative areas appear to be the middle of the country and the East Coast.

The research also found that people are much happier on weekends; the peak of happiness on Twitter is reached on Sunday mornings. The unhappiest moments are on Thursday evenings, before the last day of the workweek begins.

To visualize the data the research team created maps called cartograms, in which the sizes of states are based on the number of Twitter messages originating from them.

They looked at 300 million twts over a 3 year period. Overall report is over here

As the NYT notes, Twitter is becoming the Digital Anthropological equivalent of Rwanda and Uganda'a Gorillas and Chimpanzees.