Mainers Send Out Happy Tweets
You might have heard. Maine has been named the second “happiest” state in the U.S. According to an analysis of over 10 million tweets collected by a team at the University of Vermont, people in Maine are almost as happy as people in Hawaii. Almost.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t exactly a scientific study, but it does give you an idea how people in different parts of the country express themselves, at least on Twitter. Researchers at the Complex Systems Center coded each tweet based on the frequency of “happy” or “sad” words. The team used a specific list of words ranging from “wonderful, love, sweet, ha-ha, family and beautiful” to “stupid, hate, ugh, nasty, damn” and a number of other choice words not appropriate for this family-friendly article.
The rankings were based on assumptions that happier people tweeted a lot about food and wine and such, while the unhappiest ones tended to use the most curse words. That’s probably not far off. But when you consider that 15% of adults who go online actually tweet, it may be that the other 85% are out having the time of their lives. So there’s that.
Scientific or not, U.S. Senator Angus King cited the study in a Facebook post this week saying, ‘Way to go, Maine! We've been ranked the second happiest state in the Union.’ Second happiest. Ha ha.
HAPPIEST STATES BY TWEETS
1. Hawaii
2. Maine
3. Nevada
4. Utah
5. Vermont
UNHAPPIEST STATES BY TWEETS
1. Louisiana
2. Mississippi
3. Maryland
4. Delaware
5. Georgia
For all the data you could ever want, here's the study.
More From
