Tracking The Nation’s Mood …Through Twitter?

Researchers from Northeastern University and Harvard University recently made an interesting find while studying trends on Twitter.  After studying the moods of over 300 million Tweets, the mood of our nation as a whole changes throughout the day.  Research found Twitter users to be happiest in the morning and at the end of the day, with the afternoon during the work day being the unhappiest time of day.  No surprise there, right?

More interesting were the geographical differences.  Twitter users on the West Coast tended to be ‘happier’ than their East Coast counterparts throughout the day.  Knowing Trackur’s skepticism for automated sentiment analysis (yes, even from the folks at Harvard), what do you think about these findings?  Are people on the West Coast really happier, or do they just use different conversational patterns in their online communication?

Take a look at the research below, and let us know what you think:

(a larger version of the image can be found here)