The 'Saddest' Day in 5 Years. (April 15, 2013) According to Twitter.

Boston Marathon Attacks;
"The Saddest Day in 5 Years." According to Twitter...

Based on a measure of global happiness using Twitter data, April 15, 2013 was the 'saddest' recorded day in the past 5 years.

As reflected by English-language users' posts, the date saw a leap in the use of negative words, such as "sad," "victims" and "tragedy," and a decline in positive phrases, such as "hahaha." The finding comes as researchers launch a new public website, hedonometer.org, that shows daily global mood swings as expressed via Twitter.

www.livescience.com...

The common words in these tweets have been previously rated as sad or happy on a scale of 1 to 9 in earlier experiments. Twitter users are only a fraction of the globe — about 15 percent of American adults use the service, Danforth said — but they are becoming both more common and more representative. As of December 2012, the social media site claimed more than 200 million active monthly users, and that group has become increasingly diverse as the site's popularity broadens, Danforth said. "It's becoming more and more reflective of what's going on for people,"

After reading the title of the article my first thought was, "Sadder than Dec. 14?!" But it goes on to say:

The saddest day of them all was the date of the Boston Marathon bombings, with a happiness score of 5.88 on a scale of 1 to 9. But even though it had less-sad score, Dec. 14, 2012, the date of the mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school, may have actually been sadder

Compelling stuff. A few other dates that stand out are the '2008 financial collapse', 'The Earthquake in Japan', and on the positive side of things... 'Christmas!', Lol.

Interesting site. I'll post the link below.

www.hedonometer.org...

So an earthquake that killed many, made homeless many others, caused billions in damages and caused an unknown but high amount of damage to the enviroment was seen as a happier day than the date of a relatively small terrorist attack that left 3 dead. Or maybe the freinds and family of those massacred at the wedding around the same date are all twits/tweeters whatever you call them.

Well twitter is mostly US based and only has around 500 million users so I would not say it is a very accurate portrayal of worldwide events and their impact on feelings.

It also said it was only English Language users that they reviewed so data is pretty skewed to allow for this finding. Had twitter been doing a sub-section of only those near EQ's or other disasters and their languages I am sure the finding would have been in favor of them being the saddest as well.

reply to post by lewman

I agree with you.
Like I said, I'm surprised it surpassed the massacre of 20 small children Newtown, Conn. along with 6 adults.

reply to post by Vasa Croe


True as well.
____________________________________________

I wonder what September 11, 2001 would have looked like. Had social-media been in full swing back then...

One can only imagine.

Yeah, I don't mean to sound callous or anything, but the marathon bombing was small potatoes compared to Fukushima or Sandy Hook.

People probably just feel more emotionally swayed by the marathon bombing because there were so many graphic photos and videos of the carnage. There wasn't as much detailed graphic imagery associated with other events, so it didn't tug at the heartstrings as much. The human mind is dominated by emotion.

reply to post by Xaphan


Right. The human mind is funny like that.

It would be hard for someone to rank a list of tragedies based on which one they thought was the 'saddest.' But what they did here is allow a program to do it, instead.

Thus eliminating any bias a real person might have.

Thanks god for self-involved social media sheep to tell me how to feel!

reply to post by DPrice


The study was done using a preset of already voted on key-words, derived from an estimate of about 50million posts each day; that were selected at random.

This feed is a random sample of about 50 million tweets per day, which represents about a tenth of the messages posted on the site. The common words in these tweets have been previously rated as sad or happy on a scale of 1 to 9 in earlier experiments.

This is a snapshot of how others felt , not you. The program simply provided a list of words that were trending at the time. They're not 'telling you how to feel'...

Actually, how did you feel that day? What would you have 'tweeted' after learning about the bombing?

Actually, how did you feel that day? What would you have 'tweeted' after learning about the bombing?

I shrugged and went back to playing Guild Wars 2. I wouldn't have tweeted anything as I'm not a retard.

Originally posted by lewman
So an earthquake that killed many, made homeless many others, caused billions in damages and caused an unknown but high amount of damage to the enviroment was seen as a happier day than the date of a relatively small terrorist attack that left 3 dead. Or maybe the freinds and family of those massacred at the wedding around the same date are all twits/tweeters whatever you call them.

That wedding was TEN YEARS AGO!!!! The member who posted that thread should have known better but they are prone to sensationalism and now so many are misinformed on this wedding. It was not done this year but ten years ago! Don't believe everything you read, not even on ATS many on here just want attention and status bars.


If you think about it though this would make sense in a way. How many Americans use Twitter? A lot! So if the majority are American then this would make sense but. It doesnt mean that the other incidents are less "sad" of a day they just don't have the amount of people Tweeting about them that the Boston bombings did. I know my entire FB feed was FULL of Boston bombing posts from all over the place.

I think this statistic is just silly and bias based on the majority of Twitter that day being done by Americans.

Originally posted by DPrice

Actually, how did you feel that day? What would you have 'tweeted' after learning about the bombing?

I shrugged and went back to playing Guild Wars 2. I wouldn't have tweeted anything as I'm not a retard.

Because you're not a retard?

Originally posted by iunlimited491

Originally posted by DPrice

Actually, how did you feel that day? What would you have 'tweeted' after learning about the bombing?

I shrugged and went back to playing Guild Wars 2. I wouldn't have tweeted anything as I'm not a retard.

Because you're not a retard?

Keep it on topic please.

Originally posted by DPrice

Originally posted by iunlimited491

Originally posted by DPrice

Actually, how did you feel that day? What would you have 'tweeted' after learning about the bombing?

I shrugged and went back to playing Guild Wars 2. I wouldn't have tweeted anything as I'm not a retard.

Because you're not a retard?

Keep it on topic please.

You say you wouldn't have tweeted anything because you're not a retard... Yet frequent a site that discusses related topics everyday, with people constantly expressing how they feel. So, are you implying that Twitter users in general are retarded? Or that only those who expressed their solidarity with Boston through social-media, are retarded?

Originally posted by iunlimited491
You say you wouldn't have tweeted anything because you're not a retarded... Yet frequent a site that discusses related topics everyday, with people constantly expressing how they feel. So, are you implying that Twitter users in general are retarded? Or that only those who expressed their solidarity with Boston through social-media, are retarded?

I am saying that everybody who uses twatter is retarded. This is what I am saying.

reply to post by iunlimited491


I guess it doesn't take superficiality into consideration. Retweets are made for attention not to relay true sentiments, duh. Stupid internet bots.

Originally posted by mblahnikluver

Originally posted by lewman
So an earthquake that killed many, made homeless many others, caused billions in damages and caused an unknown but high amount of damage to the enviroment was seen as a happier day than the date of a relatively small terrorist attack that left 3 dead. Or maybe the freinds and family of those massacred at the wedding around the same date are all twits/tweeters whatever you call them.

That wedding was TEN YEARS AGO!!!! The member who posted that thread should have known better but they are prone to sensationalism and now so many are misinformed on this wedding. It was not done this year but ten years ago! Don't believe everything you read, not even on ATS many on here just want attention and status bars.


If you think about it though this would make sense in a way. How many Americans use Twitter? A lot! So if the majority are American then this would make sense but. It doesnt mean that the other incidents are less "sad" of a day they just don't have the amount of people Tweeting about them that the Boston bombings did. I know my entire FB feed was FULL of Boston bombing posts from all over the place.

I think this statistic is just silly and bias based on the majority of Twitter that day being done by Americans.

It's amazing how many different articles on different web sites claim that this happened recently, or atleast ran the story recently without putting a date on the event but you are completely right and I should have checked more myself.

here is a recent link to a random website-
www.dailypaul.com...

And here is the original story from 2002-
www.dailymail.co.uk...

We actually had to have researchers tells us that people reacted negatively in social media after hearing about a major terrorist attack?

I wonder how many millions of taxpayer money this study cost?

The point of the study is to show the general consensus of how a collective group of people might react to certain events over the course of time. In NO way shape or form, is the project based solely on the Boston Marathon attack. The data just pointed out that 'sad' type words were the main words used on that day, and they appeared more frequently than any other day in comparison. Using an aforementioned 'sample' of roughly about 50-million tweets in the English language; selected at random.

I mean, damn... after reading some of the replies in this thread, I would say that some people are about 99 cents short of a dollar.