ROdown Blog
How does the world feel... right now?
Over at We Feel Fine they're doing some really cool stuff with tracking how Twitter, Facebook and blogs show how people all over the world are feeling at the moment.
Click on the ‘Interactive Version’ in the bottom left and you'll be able to see how the general mood of the world ebbs and flows - sometimes everybody else is chuffed, or sometimes you're not the only one who's feeling down.
In fact, they found that some days are very 'happy' days, and others have been very much the opposite. In looking at results in the US, they found:
- The consistently happiest days are, not surprisingly, vacation days and holidays. The overall happiest days of the last few years were election day (November 4 2008) and President Obama's inauguration (January 2009). On these days, people typically typed sentences with words like ‘pride’ and ‘proud’.
- Some of the saddest days over the last few years have been the anniversaries of 9-11 and even the day before that solemn anniversary, September 10. Michael Jackson's recent death also caused a drop in the average national happiness. (via msnbc)
What's really cool about this is the interactive site where you can see people all over the world expressing how they feel at this very moment, and also what is the most-expressed feeling right now.
Click on any individual bubble, and see what someone said:
You can change how you view the data as graphs, lists, lumpy blobs, or scattered free-form dots:
It would be great if there were something similar to analyse how our own status reflect our own feelings-a bit like the Facebook ‘Year in Status updates’ app, but across all platforms. Then you could compare it to how everybody else is feeling.
Do you use any app or service to track how you feel, or would you like to know how you're feelings compare to the mood of everybody else?
Acknowledgement: big thanks to Vince from the Reach Out crew in Ireland for allow the Australian crew to share this blog here with you guys in :)
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14 Comments
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Daniela Falecki
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportWhat a great idea !
Bella.
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportHey Anna,
crystyl
almost 2 years ago
Reply Reportthat is sooo cool !! Reachout should do something like this..
anna
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportWell - apparently you can actually pay to use the software which picks up words and aggregates - I imagine you could do this with comments etc...
Or, it could be done through tagging of content, or a 'I feel x' when you jump on the site...if you wanted to of course :)
Antria
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportI love this idea but I totally self-sensor online. Occasionally I will share that I am tired or something but I usually just don't post if I am down. This is generally because I have too many people online that I don't want to share the real me with. I miss the opportunity to be honest online. Kind of tempted to just put it out there sometimes, haha.
If this were possible on RO it would be amazing. No idea how it would work though!
Chey
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportI really like the idea,bit creepy at first but yerp love it,I think it would be cool,even if we just trialed it for a bit n then gathered ppls thought n feedback.Jeez Technlogy is expanding.
I dont think it should be use for invdiuals but as you stated Anna it could be used for tracking the mood of the community on RO.
anna
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportHow do you reckon something like this might be used for RO?!
I'm thinking it would be interesting to be able to track the mood of the community, and respond proactively and promptly with various RO offerings....eg:
- Infobus sessions on the forums
- an automated skill building module
- blogs to start conversations around why the community might be feeling a particular way, and if appropriate conversations around strategies to improve mood (if in a negative space)
- videos
- stories or fact sheets
Would be cool if we could automate this to some extent - I guess it's a extension of the idea of social navigation by emotion...except could be prompted by the community's mood rather than an individuals...of course, there could be a similar response to individuals.
Hmm - anyway..just thinking aloud / in writing!
What do you reckon?
Mockingjay
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportThat was cool, and it really tripped me out haha... seeing dots.
Ophelia.L
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportYou never how truthful micro-blogging can be, because we are not the person behind the virtual technological tool.
Liamay
almost 2 years ago
Reply Reportthis is reallly cooool!
Bella.
almost 2 years ago
Reply Reportoh, oops... you already mentioned Bhutan Anna.
Bella.
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportThis reminds me of Bhutan!
anna
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportI'm also interested to know what people think about how accurate this kind of feelings aggregating device might be - in terms of how honest people are with sharing their feelings via microblogging etc.
I personally definitely self-censor to an extent, and try to focus more on sharing the positive stuff, but I know some people are brutally honest + open... would be interesting to know what proportion of people really reflect their feelings openly in blogging / microblogging.
What do people think?!
anna
almost 2 years ago
Reply ReportI really loved this post from our Irish RO crew, and thought it'd be cool to share here :)
Personally, I find the whole idea of tracking happiness pretty interesting.
Some of you may have heard of the Gross National Happiness work being done in Bhutan. As far as I know they're not digitally tracking happiness as such right now, but still pretty encouraging to know it's so highly valued in their society :)