Mapping Happiness on Twitter: Where Does Your State Rank?

image
Jane SusskindJane Susskind
Published: 04 Jun, 2013
2 min read

According to recent research mapping sentiment on Twitter, Napa - located in the heart of California's Wine Country region - is home to the happiest tweeters in the nation.

California as a whole, however, did not even rank in the top five in a measure of happiness on Twitter.

Figure 1. Average word happiness for geotagged tweets in all US states collected during calendar year 2011, from PLoS ONE

happiness_on_Twitter

In Figure 1, the redder the state, the happier the tweets. Using geotagged tweets, researchers at the Vermont Complex Systems Center analyzed keywords used throughout 2011 in conjunction with annually surveyed characteristics of all 50 states to conclude that the happiest Tweeters come from Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Utah and Vermont. Reversely, the saddest states are Louisiana, Mississippi, Maryland, Delaware and Georgia - with Beaumont, Texas ranking as the saddest city in America.

"The differences in the words people used told us a lot about the cities themselves," lead author Lewis Mitchell said. "Essentially we were able to create a geography of happiness."

While the research provides a colorful map of happiness throughout the nation, the goal of the year long analysis was to "investigate how geographic place correlates with and potentially influences societal levels of happiness."

Focusing on the impact of urban living on well-being, researchers analyzed words within tweets based on a happiness level, identifying curse words as a key indicator of unhappiness.

With only 15% of adults on Twitter and only 10% of tweets collected, it's important to note that the study represents a subset of the population and should not be used to define the behavior of the population as a whole. Furthermore, the "happiest" locations are also known vacation spots, making the geographical correlation tainted.

Read the full report here or follow @geographyofhapp for daily updates on the geography of happiness on Twitter.

IVP Donate

Do you think we can measure happiness on Twitter?

You Might Also Like

Proposition 50 voter guide
California Prop 50: Partisan Power Play or Necessary Counterpunch?
November 4 marks a special election for what has become the most controversial ballot measure in California in recent memory: Proposition 50, which would circumvent congressional districts drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission for a legislative-drawn map....
01 Oct, 2025
-
9 min read
court gavel.
Virtual Discussion: The Fight for Equal Independent Voting Rights Makes it to SCOTUS
Every major voting rights movement in U.S. history – whether successful or not – has intertwined with landmark litigation. This was the case for women’s suffrage. It was the case for civil rights. And it is the case in the ongoing effort to protect the right of all voters to have equal participation in taxpayer-funded elections – something millions of independent voters are denied across the U.S....
29 Sep, 2025
-
2 min read
Supreme Court building
SCOTUS Considers Challenge to Closed Primaries -- Here's Why It Is Such a Big Deal
In a dramatic step forward for litigation challenging closed primaries, the U.S. Supreme Court has indicated they are going to conference to discuss whether to grant a writ of certiorari to Polelle v. Florida Secretary of State; a case challenging Florida's closed primaries that Open Primaries has supported since its inception....
26 Sep, 2025
-
2 min read