Gone are the days of long surveys and how-do-you-feel questionnaires. We now have social media.
Last week, a unique new study was released that analyzed the emotions of individuals at different parts of the day. The unique part – it wasn’t done in the conventional way. Sociologists at Cornell University used Twitter, not the standard questionnaire or survey, to discover that our moods are at their best in the morning and right before bedtime.
Now some of us here at Daum Weigle may question those numbers because we find it hard to believe that the world is happiest after hitting the snooze button a couple times, but for now we are willing to overlook that. The important part is that social media is changing how we study human behavior.
And while some could have guessed that this was inevitable, it is still no less groundbreaking. Now we can eliminate the margin of error and leaning of surveys that steer respondents towards a certain answer. Social media brings pure, uncensored data.
So with this new wealth of public data for researchers who knows what we should expect to see analyzed in the future.
Maybe a study on what people do most during their workday commute? Or maybe a study on mood swings during sporting events?
Whatever the next topic may be, we can be guaranteed one thing – thanks to social media in the public domain, less people will be asked to take a survey for a 1 in 10 chance to win a $20 gift card.
