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August 2, 2013
Posted: 08/02/13 EDT | Updated: 08/02/13 EDT
Mapping Out Happiness (INFOGRAPHIC)
Which way to happy? Geographically speaking, it's the route to Hawaii, Maine or one of the clusters of blissful cities in California and Colorado.
The map below is based on results from a study of geotagged tweets published earlier this year in PLoS ONE by researchers at the University of Vermont. The team scored more than 10,000 words on a positive-negative scale and measured their frequency in millions of tweets across the country, deliberately ignoring context to eliminate experimental bias. What emerged was significant regional variation in happiness by this calculation, which correlates with other lifestyle measures such as gun violence, obesity and Gallup's traditional wellbeing survey. A sadness belt across the South includes states that have high levels of poverty and the shortest life expectancies.
Geography is, of course, just one predictor of moods expressed on Twitter. The researchers also used their "hedometer" to look atdaily happiness averages over the past few years — and the peaks (holidays, especially Christmas) and valleys (tragedies including the Newtown shooting and Boston Marathon bombing) are not surprising.
Until there's a hedometer that can analyze tweets in every language, we have to look at other wellbeing measures to see how happy the U.S. is compared to other countries. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Better Life Index, Switzerland scores highest on life satisfaction with the U.S. coming in behind New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Israel and some Western European countries. And a recent Ipsos poll spells global good news: more people describe themselves as "happy" now than before the financial crisis of 2008 began.
Infographic by Jan Diehm for The Huffington Post.
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2 minutes ago ( 3:55 PM)
Gee, how did I know that Santa Barbara would be one of the happy cities and four republican southern states would be in the bottom of the list, again?
2 minutes ago ( 3:55 PM)
That very dark group of states, from LA to GA...least happy, least educated, most poverty, fewer services, less opportunity...shocking, I tell ya, just shocking.
3 minutes ago ( 3:55 PM)
Is this supposed to be "World Happiness" or "Word Happiness?" Like, how happy are you with words? Hmmm. Better proofreading, Huffpost.
4 minutes ago ( 3:53 PM)
Jeez, not much satisfaction in Hungary.
8 minutes ago ( 3:49 PM)
This looks pretty accurate. I've been to all 50 states and all the mentioned cities, and I've lived in California, Florida, Louisiana, New York, Maryland and Washington DC, and for all those places this map is spot on.
9 minutes ago ( 3:48 PM)
Clarifying questions: What were the overall sample sizes by state, and did the study use a ratio of happy to not happy, rather than overall counts? Does the the frequency of Twitter usage by state differ from state to state, and are there trends of how people use Twitter to communicate different from region to region?
10 minutes ago ( 3:47 PM)
Funny; the chart correlates with the areas that are most progressive in terms of Cannabis use. Coincidence?
10 minutes ago ( 3:47 PM)
I never go by polls. They're always manipulated. I used to be an analyst, I know.
10 minutes ago ( 3:47 PM)
How many of the "Happy Countries" have open borders. None. All of them are very tightly controlled (Switzerland is essentially a gated community with 100% firearms ownership. Seems like the progressives/liberals are barking up the wrong tree.
2 minutes ago ( 3:56 PM)
....or perhaps their health care system (which is almost identical to Obamacare) is responsible for their great sense of well being...
10 minutes ago ( 3:47 PM)
Makes me wonder why the hysteria over the "United" States. We're NOT united, and seemingly, very unhappy.Maybe we should be more like the Swedes.
12 minutes ago ( 3:45 PM)
I dont believe this map for a minute. I grew up in california and still live here now and i have yet to meet the happy people. People are always in a hurry with no care for whats in their way their rude idiots just no happy maps wrong
7 minutes ago ( 3:50 PM)
where do you live in CA and just because one (gen pop) doesn't socialize with you the way you like doesn't mean they (gen pop) aren't happy!! :)
14 minutes ago ( 3:44 PM)
How come all those supposedly bad, bad Socialist countries are the happiest of all?
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2 minutes ago ( 3:55 PM)
Now would be a good time to refer yourself to your very own micro-bio.
14 minutes ago ( 3:43 PM)
Look at all those countries with socialistic medicine that are happier than us. How could they be?
15 minutes ago ( 3:42 PM)
Duck Dynasty clan is happy, happy, happy, why are they not on this map
16 minutes ago ( 3:41 PM)
All the countries that have NO BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP are the happiest countries. They get to keep the benefits they paid for and use them on their OWN citizens. They actually can have a budget without begging a third world country to finance giving Social Services, Medical and education to the whole friggin world.
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