“Happy hour” is not when you might expect it to be, according to a new analysis of about half a billion Twitter messages from around the globe. On average, people are chipper when they wake up and become grouchy as the day wears on. This pattern holds true on weekends, too, but is delayed by about two hours—a trend confirmed in tweets from the United Arab Emirates, where the workweek is Sunday through Thursday. The data suggest that sleep schedules strongly influence mood cycles. The duo at Cornell University who carried out the research, published last September in Science, say that the rising popularity of online social media is allowing scientists to study human behavior in surprising new ways.

This article was published in print as "Happy in the Morning."

3 Comments

1. 1. bumluck 08:54 PM 2/20/12

   Not me.
   
   I greet each waking with a curse, and feel better as night comes on.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

2. 2. luhng 05:55 PM 2/22/12

   according to Professor Takahashi, PH.d. E=Mc3\4 is indeed necessary for the pattern of what our bodies need yet there is much more to than that. we have what is called an inner energy that needs to also be, (as we might call it) fed. everyone is different. we must all listen to our own bodies. so we need to look at the amount of Hz output through the day and the wattage that we put out. so what is your food intake verses what meds are you on. many questions are indeed a part of this equation. for a fact the bodies energies are indeed lower in the morning than in the afternoon. so I beg to differ. ☺

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this

3. 3. gmperkins 08:12 AM 2/23/12

   That only shows that people who use twitter regularly are happier in the morning. The typical twitter user doesn't seem to be representative of the average citizen in a modern country.

   Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this