Happiness is craved, for me as much as anyone, I confess.
In search of evermore accurate ways of quantifying human happiness, researchers at the University of Vermont have tuned into Twitter. Seriously, the Hollywood hype forum has come under academic scrutiny. Must be that the course in underwater basket weaving was over-subscribed.
The research team analyzed millions of tweets across the US ( yes, we are being daily scrutinized by a university, too) to pinpoint where the most cheerful users lived. They coded words with positive associations (“friend, hope, beauty,” for example) and negative ones (“hate, lied, ugly”).
The data was analyzed and, not surprising to me, seven of the top 15 cities were in California!!!
Napa, California led the list. Maybe because “wine” was one of the happy words. Connection? Whaddayathink? A little bird told me to go have a glass of wine..
P.S. Remember that Jesus’ first miracle was changing water into wine.
Good one – wine!!!
Maybe it’s also because those people are ‘escaping’ their ‘normal’ lives to 7 Californian cities. Perhaps it’s not the location, but the mindset that makes one happy?
Happiness tends to be found in circumstances; as you say, if your current situation is wine-tasting in a beautiful vineyard surrounded by others serving you – how can you NOT be happy?
Regardless of where happiness is found, let’s raise a glass and toast to those unhappy people staying far from us. 🙂
Cheryl – Do you think that the researchers drank wine to help the selection process? That’s, as well as OPI nail colors, would be a committee that I would happily volunteer for, eh!
Jessica – perhaps you and Dan can set up a similar research project at your university… Ha! I actually can not believe that Twitter is something for study, though Jennifer Egan did famously write a book wholly via Twitter last summer! I also can not believe that I wrote a blog post about Twitter…when I should be writing my book.
And, BTW, the most unhappy city in the US, based on the words used in Twitter communication, was Beaumont, Texas.