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Characterizing Geographic Variation in Well-Being Using Tweets

Authors

Hansen Schwartz,Johannes Eichstaedt,Margaret Kern,Lukasz Dziurzynski,Richard Lucas,Megha Agrawal,Gregory Park,Shrinidhi Lakshmikanth,Sneha Jha,Martin Seligman,Lyle Ungar

University of Pennsylvania,University of Pennsylvania,University of Pennsylvania,University of Pennsylvania,Michigan State University,University of Pennsylvania,University of Pennsylvania,University of Pennsylvania,University of Pennsylvania,University of Pennsylvania,University of Pennsylvania


Proceedings:

Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 7

Volume

Issue:

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2013): Seventh International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media

Track:

Full Papers

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Abstract:

The language used in tweets from 1,300 different US counties was found to be predictive of the subjective well-being of people living in those counties as measured by representative surveys. Topics, sets of co-occurring words derived from the tweets using LDA, improved accuracy in predicting life satisfaction over and above standard demographic and socio-economic controls (age, gender, ethnicity, income, and education). The LDA topics provide a greater behavioural and conceptual resolution into life satisfaction than the broad socio-economic and demographic variables. For example, tied in with the psychological literature, words relating to outdoor activities, spiritual meaning, exercise, and good jobs correlate with increased life satisfaction, while words signifying disengagement like ’bored’ and ’tired’ show a negative association.

DOI:

10.1609/icwsm.v7i1.14442


ICWSM

Vol. 7 No. 1 (2013): Seventh International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media