By Kim Kalunian, WPRO News
A new study released by the University of Vermont this month found that Rhode Island is one of the unhappiest states.
The study, “The Geography of Happiness,” studied 10 million geo-tagged Tweets from 373 urban areas in the U.S. during 2011.
Rhode Island was ranked 32, with Hawaii taking home the title of “Happiest State” and Louisiana being labeled “Least Happy.” Neighboring state Massachusetts came in 25 and Connecticut ranked 38.
The study assigned point values to a number of words found in Tweets that were both positive (friend, delicious, love) and negative (hate, bored, stupid).
Hawaii emerged as one of the happiest states, but the study notes that this could not only have to do with a high use of words like “beach” but also because the word “Hi” gets a positive score – and HI is Hawaii’s postal abbreviation.
Why did Louisiana come in dead last? According to the study it’s because many tweets that come from the Big Easy area are laden with profanity.
Professor Bob Thompson, TV and Pop Culture Expert at Syracuse University told Gene Valicenti on the WPRO Morning News that he wouldn’t put too much stock in the report.
“As much fun as these things are to look at…I don’t think we should draw any conclusions from this,” he said.
Thompson said the nature of the study was more likely to draw conclusions about Twitter users, not the general population.
“It showed that in places where there were higher concentrations of tweets… [people] tended to be sadder,“ he said, something he believes gives the implications that those who have and use more technology are sadder than their non-technological counterparts.
The study only collected about 10 percent of all Tweets sent during 2011, and only 15 percent of online adults regularly use Twitter, most of which are between the ages of 18 and 29.
“Our data set is a non-uniform subsample of statements made by a non-representative portion of the population,” the study says.
In addition to looking at Tweets, the study examined Census data to compare against its Twitter findings, and found that happiness most strongly correlated with wealth. Paradoxically, the study says, personal wealth has steadily increased over time, while happiness has shown a downward trend.
Those at the University of Vermont plan to revisit the study when 2012 Census data becomes available.
