Facebook knows if we are happy

Facebook has become indispensable for our social care and keep abreast of what happens in our circle of friends, but now aspires to much more: whether or not we are happy.
The popular social network has developed an index to measure the degree of happiness and ensures that it can determine on which days the Americans were when they were happier and more miserable.
The system is simple and uses the personal information that millions of users share every day with the rest of the world: Facebook has analyzed the words used by members of the network in its status bar and answers the question "What are you thinking ?.
"Cluster, these updates are indicative of how we feel collectively," he writes in a blog post on Facebook Adam Kramer, a psychology student at the University of Oregon and one of the leaders of the project.

So Facebook finds good days when words like "happy" or "great" abound in the status bar of the users of social network and negative ones in which many members use terms such as "dramatic" in the description of moods.The result is an indicator that, to paraphrase the GDP, Facebook called "Gross National Happiness" and demonstrates that, like most people, Americans tend to be happier in the holidays.
"Some of the happiest days included U.S. national holidays such as Thanksgiving Day, July 4 and Halloween or religious holidays like Christmas or Easter," says Kramer.
One exception was the November 5, 2008, the day after the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president, in which, according to the study, Facebook members were twice as happy as anyone on a Wednesday.
But there were other moments of very low morale. On Facebook more pessimistic since the survey began two years ago was on 22 January 2008, date of death of U.S. actor Heath Ledger and the collapse of Asian stock markets.He was followed on 25 June this year, when the world was startled by the news of the death of the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, and Facebook status bar is filled with terms like "tragic," "sad" or "doubt .
The study is limited to users in the United States and to English, but Facebook has plans to expand into other languages and countries, says Kramer, who, according to the blog, is a 72 percent happier than the average user of social network .
Facebook has become an indispensable tool for millions of people around the world and many do not know and start the day without updating their status or check the news published by its contacts.
The pace of Facebook, which already has nearly 300 million users, is frantic: each user has an average of 120 friends and 20 million people update their status at least once a day.

Many companies even begin to be concerned about the business impact of excessive use of the network among its employees and has decided to impose limits.
According to a recent poll, 54 percent of all U.S. companies prohibit their employees to visit social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter or MySpace during work hours.

"The use of social networking can distract attention from the employees of other higher priority tasks, so it is understandable that some companies restrict access," said Dave Willmer, director of Robert Half Technology, Study.
However, one in five employers can use for work, showing that Facebook is also used to do business ... or that some have managed to convince the boss.