New Study Shows Twitter Tracks Mood Swings

Twitter shows people are more cheerful in the morning

Twitter is now another way researchers can study moods and mood patterns across the globe.

Sociologists at Cornell University analyzed 509 million tweets by 2.4 million people from 84 countries during a two-year period.

“There’s just a torrent of new digital data coming into the field, and it’s transforming the social sciences, creating new lenses to look at all sorts of behaviors,” said Peter Sheridan Dodds, a researcher at the University of Vermont who was not involved in the new research.

The report reveals that tweets tend to be more positive on the weekends and moods tend to be better early in the morning.

Scientists analyzed the global mood by searching for words in messages that indicate positive emotions -- "agree," "fantastic," "super" -- and negative ones, such as "afraid," "mad," and "panic."