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Wired works out the world’s mood according to Twitter

Want to see what kind of mood Twitter users have been in over the past few years?

If you have ever wondered what mood the rest of the world is in, Wired can tell you going back to 2008 – well, the mood of Twitter users anyway.

A pair of mathematicians have compiled over 27 billion tweets and have scored how happy or sad people felt as they posted them. You can read all about it in Wired’s November issue!

Chris Danforth and Peter Dodds, who work at the University of Vermont devised the ‘Hedonometer’ which tracks people’s emotions according to their Tweets. It picks out key words in the Tweet and decides if they have positive or negative connotations.

“What we’re found is that the happy days are very predictable – they tend to fall on holidays celebrated in the United States – and the sad days occur when some unexpected event takes place,” says Danforth.

The saddest day on the chart was the day of the Boston bombings. Whilst, many tweeted about “prayers” and “families” which are positive, most tweets emphasised the words “victims”, “bombs” and “tragedy” which are obviously negative.

Read more about this in the November issue of Wired!

Subscribe and save on a Wired magazine subscription today.

Posted by Donnie Bachan.

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