Check out this freely posted study by math & stats profs Dodds & Danforth (“D&D”) on Measuring the Happiness of Large-Scale Written Expression: Songs, Blogs, and Presidents. Or for a simpler synopsis, see this spin by PHYSorg.com, which harkens back to a utopian dream of “hedonometers” measuring happiness. Not surprising, the D&D hedonometer dropped way down on the day of Michael Jackson’s death this summer. 🙁
>”Our method is only reasonable for large-scale texts, like what’s available on the Web,” Dodds says. “Any one sentence might not show much. There’s too much variability in individual expression.” But that’s the beauty of big data sets* and statistics.< — Source: PHYSorg.com
Here’s an observation by D&D really tickles my ribs: Happiness of blogs increased steadily from 2005 to 2009, exhibiting a striking rise and fall with blogger age and distance from the Earth’s equator. Figure 9 of their publication reveals a maximum happiness valence near my age (56 years), latitude (45 degrees North) and the day I normally blog (Sunday). Thus I think that StatsMadeEasy must be near the top of the blog pile for cheerfulness, particularly given my guiding principal to keep it simple and make it fun (KISMIF).**
Nevertheless, I am throwing in a wet blanket over this whole write-up by alerting you to a recent (8/1/09) Science News report about “When Humor Humiliates.” I now fear that being overtly happy, to the extent of laughing out loud (LOL), might provoke hard feelings from those who suffer from gelotophobia – fear of being laughed at. According to a survey of more than 20,000 people in 73 countries this phobia is widespread, but particularly active in certain cultures. The USA seems to fare well in specific aspects of gelotophobia – particularly the city of Cincinnati. So if you just cannot contain your belly laugh, let it all out there in the midsection of America. 😉
* These two enterprising professors report they examined nearly 10 million blog sentences!
** Search on “happiness” for my prior musings on statistics related to this subject.