Facebook develops index that tells us when we’re happy
Well, it looks like the folks at Facebook have figured out what to do with all those status updates we carefully craft. They’ve developed an index of national happiness - relying on key words that, hopefully, indicate what sort of mood you are in.
This, according to the Facebook blog:
The result was an index that measures how happy people on Facebook are from day-to-day by looking at the number of positive and negative words they’re using when updating their status. When people in their status updates use more positive words-or fewer negative words-then that day as a whole is counted as happier than usual.
I guess it’s not a huge surprise that the best recent days for Gross National Happiness have been around Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter and New Year’s Eve.
The worst? Looks like it was Thursday, June 25, which seems a little odd. Why were we all so unhappy that day? Was it the nationwide release of the new Transformers movie a day earlier? I think that’s what did me in.
Tim has covered a wide range of topics, including tourism, crime, aviation and gambling, since becoming a reporter in 1990. The Oklahoma native joined the Post-Dispatch in 2007 after spending nine years in Orlando. In his spare time, he's often exploring one virtual world or another. He can be reached at tbarker@post-dispatch.com. 
This country is officially run out of interesting things to do.
Oh goody! I love when someone else can tell me how I am feeling. When can we start to order the optional PC add-on? The one that dispenses mood-altering/leveling drugs (similar to the machine that gives you change at Walgreens).
June 25th was the day that Michael Jackson died. There were lots of “sad” posts that day, as I recall.