/ #Social Media #Sentiment 

Weather impacts expressed sentiment

Authors: Patrick Baylis, Nick Obradovich, Yury Kryvasheyeu, Haohui Chen, Lorenzo Coviello, Esteban Moro, Manuel Cebrian, James H. Fowler
Journal: PLoS ONE 13(4): e0195750 (2018) LINK

Abstract: We conduct the largest ever investigation into the relationship between meteorological con- ditions and the sentiment of human expressions. To do this, we employ over three and a half billion social media posts from tens of millions of individuals from both Facebook and Twitter between 2009 and 2016. We find that cold temperatures, hot temperatures, precipitation, narrower daily temperature ranges, humidity, and cloud cover are all associated with wors- ened expressions of sentiment, even when excluding weather-related posts. We compare the magnitude of our estimates with the effect sizes associated with notable historical events occurring within our data.

Press

  • “IT’S NOT JUST YOU: DARK CLOUDS ARE LINKED WITH DARKER MOODS”, Newsweek
  • “Under the Weather? How social media sentiments reflect weather patterns”, PLOS Research News
  • “The Way We Talk Online Is Impacted by Changing Weather, Study Finds” The Weather Channel
  • “Bad weather is ‘more depressing than terrorist attack’, study finds” Yahoo UK News
  • “When the weather is good, we are happier on social networks”, Eureka News
  • “Weather associated with sentiments expressed on social media”, Phys.org
  • “La temperatura de la felicidad es de 25 grados a mediodía y 10 por la noche”, La Vanguardia
Author

Esteban Moro

Professor at Northeastern University. Working on Complex Systems, Social Networks and Urban Science.