We were curious as to what Twitter would reveal about the mental health of Canadians. The results are fascinating. So-called "tweets" are often accompanied by "emoticons". In Twitter, the emoticon :) or :-) means happy or joyful. The emoticon :( signifies sad. The double string, :) :), means very happy or :( :( means very sad.
Using our real-time analysis, there were 417 tweets - within 15 miles of Toronto - expressing sadness (or what Twitter calls a "negative attitude") during 17 minutes on March 12 (from 1:06pm EST to 1:23pm EST). During the very same time frame, there were 1,500 tweets from Toronto showing happiness or a "positive attitude." This suggests that the ratio of happy comments to sad comments in the Toronto area was 3.6 to 1.
Amazing must-read research by @carlosrizo and @neilseeman. Microrelevance like whoa...
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