I can see myself getting sidetracked by the website http://timeu.se/. I
only explored a short time and found the distribution for "emotional"
(compared to "emotion") and "homework" to be fascinating.
Robert A. Cohen, Department of Physics, East Stroudsburg University
570.422.3428 rcohen@esu.edu http://www.esu.edu/~bbq
-----Original Message-----
From: phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu
[mailto:phys-l-bounces@carnot.physics.buffalo.edu] On Behalf Of brian
whatcott
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2011 12:59 PM
To: Forum for Physics Educators
Subject: [Phys-l] Circadian and weekly cycles in Topic Interest - World
wide
Around the world, the day dawns full of promise. But moods go downhill
over the course of the day, rebounding again in the evening, according
to a Cornell analysis of the public Twitter messages of 2.4 million
people in 84 countries. Equanimity perks up again on weekends -- but
later in the morning, suggesting mass sleeping-in.
Seasonal variations in day length and sleep cycles affect people in
similar ways across cultures, report Cornell researchers Scott Golder, a
doctoral student in the field of sociology, and Michael Macy, the
Goldwin Smith Professor of Sociology, in a study published in the Sept.
30 issue of the journal Science.
They discovered peaks in positive tweets in the early morning and late
at night, on weekdays as well as weekends, across cultures. "In some
ways, the study confirms longstanding assumptions that people experience
similar moods at similar times of the day," Golder said. The researchers
also found that people were generally in a better mood on weekends than
on weekdays, regardless of the time of day, which points to the effects
of work and commuting. In the United Arab Emirates, for example, the
Sunday through Thursday workweek produces more positive tweets on
Fridays and Saturdays.
"We saw the influence of something that's biological- or sleep-based:
Regardless of the day of the week, the shape of the mood rhythm is the
same," Golder said. "The difference between weekdays and weekends has to
do with the average mood, which is higher on the weekends than the
weekdays, but the shape was the same every day. Even in the face of
different social and cultural demands, the results are consistent across
days."
Twitter made its data available to the researchers through a public
interface, and processing the data at the Cornell Center for Advanced
Computing's Web Lab gave them a "huge efficiency gain," Golder said.
Access to tweet content let the researchers make hourly observations of
large, culturally diverse populations over time; other studies had
relied on small, homogenous groups of U.S. undergraduates, and previous
psychology research on mood rhythms was inconclusive.
"We started looking at how moods are distributed across the course of
the day," Golder said. "We've never had the opportunity to measure
behavior in this way before. Digital <searchkeyword.aspx?q=digital&ao=0>
traces of online activity let us to do social science in a new way, and
to ask questions we've always wanted to ask. How do entire societies
work? How are relationships patterned? We're starting to get the data to
answer these questions."
The researchers associated the tweets with the length of the day. The
study also addresses the possible influence of the sun -- or lack of it
-- on seasonal affective disorder (aka "winter blues"). "Living in
Ithaca, of course, we're interested in how long, cold, dark winters
affect people," Golder said. The study finds, he said, "It's not how
much daylight you're getting, it's the relative daylight -- whether the
days are getting longer or shorter -- that makes a difference in
positive mood."
In conjunction with the paper, the researchers have developed the
website http://timeu.se/ that allows users to enter keywords (e.g.,
breakfast, traffic, fishing) to see how behaviors are distributed
throughout the day.
The National Science Foundation supported this research.