On Twitter’s 10th birthday, we look at how researchers have used the platform for a range of studies, from predicting the next flu outbreak to identifying the happiest city in America.
Learning the language of happiness.
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Fall in love, have a baby, watch your happiness and satisfaction plummet. Psychology researchers know the transition to parenthood can be rough on relationships.
Jumping to conclusions. Does GDP mislead us?
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Our feelings of self-worth and contentment are no longer the preserve of writers and artists. Science has made measurement of our well-being a viable alternative to the banalities of economic output.
Research shows that when people share happy news on social media, they make their friends - and extended social network - happy too. Picking up on this trend is a new swathe of “good news” websites.
However hard we pursue happiness, when the party’s over we must still confront the grimmer aspects of life.
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We can pursue our own happiness to the exclusion of the real world, but how meaningful can that be? Far better to engage with life and both the happiness and sadness it brings along the way.
Feeling content means having a deep-seated, abiding acceptance of oneself and one’s worth, together with a sense of self-fulfilment, meaning and purpose.
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Happiness might seem like a worthy goal but it will invariably be disrupted by unwelcome negative feelings. Far better to seek contentment, which can serve as a foundation for both joy and pleasure.
Life is naturally sunny for the ‘happy mother’ of social mythology, which makes it doubly difficult for mums when they are miserable.
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Women are supposed to be happy about motherhood – if they’re not their parenting is open to question. We have seen a ‘Parenting Hate’ backlash against this, but what’s needed most is better social support.
Happiness about a new car is relative - it depends on your expectations and on what other people have.
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While the economics of happiness has boomed, the economics of unhappiness has been neglected. Yet there are many objective sources of unhappiness that good economic research might tackle productively.
The most powerful strategy for achieving happiness is to give up trying to be happy.
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To pose the question of whether we can love happiness feels a bit like asking whether the Pope is a Catholic. Most of us believe we not only can love happiness, but that we should!
The gift of time makes patients happy.
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Much of the fear of cancer arises from a lack of control, so I’m at my happiest when a patient with a new diagnosis comes in bewildered and shaken and leaves my office feeling a modicum of control.
Inside Out’s five emotions are not a bad reflection of the emotional diversity within our own minds.
Pixar
Pixar’s new film, Inside Out, shows that chasing happiness along won’t necessarily bring well-being, which is a view backed by the latest psychological research.
More than two million cat videos were posted on YouTube as of 2014 with nearly 26 billion total views.
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Watching cute cat videos and looking at their online pictures may not be a waste of time. A new study has found doing so could boost energy levels and increase feelings of happiness.
A lifestyle based on aggressive consumption stresses the Earth’s resources and, beyond a certain point of comfort, does not actually foster human fulfillment or happiness.