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Is it possible to tell how happy we all are?
Yes, according to US scientists who have devised a way to measure the happiness of millions of bloggers -- and found Michael Jackson's death was one of the saddest days while the U.S. election was the happiest in four years.
Peter Dodds and Chris Danforth, a mathematician and computer scientist from the Advanced Computing Center at the University of Vermont, have created a "sensor" to mine 2.3 million blogs and gather sentences beginning with "I feel" or "I am feeling." Each sentence is then given a happiness score from 1 to 9 depending on a point system allocated to 1,034 words. For example, "triumphant" averages 8.87 points, "paradise" 8.72, "pancakes" 6.08, and "suicide" 1.25.
They said this "hedonometer" showed that the US election day last November was the happiest day in four years with a spike in the word "proud" while the day of the "King of Pop's" death was one of the unhappiest.
"The proliferation of personal online writing such as blogs gives us the opportunity to measure emotional levels in real time," they said in their report titled "Measuring the Happiness of Large-Scale Written Expression: Songs, Blogs, and Presidents."
Their study, reported this week in the Journal of Happiness Studies, involved gathering nearly 10 million sentences.
"Our method is only reasonable for large-scale texts, like what's available on the Web. Any one sentence might not show much. There's too much variability in individual expression," said Dodds.
The scientists said that although blog writers tend to be younger and more educated than average, they were broadly representative of the US population.
They were also writing in a natural environment where they were comfortable as opposed to other happiness studies were participants were put on the spot.
"They think they are communicating with friends but (since blogs are public), we're just looking over their shoulders," said Danforth.
They said their results also ran contrary to recent social science data that suggested people basically feel the same at all ages of life.
Their method showed young teenagers are unhappiest with a disproportionate use of "sick," "hate," "stupid," "sad," "depressed," "bored," "lonely," "mad," and "fat." Then people get happier until they are old, when happiness drops off.
But the scientists said it was impossible to know what was really going on in people's heads.
"Our study is a data exploration," said Danforth. "It's not about developing a theory."
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(Agencies)
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有沒有可能分辨出我們到底有多高興呢？
答案是肯定的，因為美國的科學家已經發明出測量數百萬博友快樂指數的方法，并發現邁克爾?杰克遜去世那天是博友們最傷心的日子之一，而美國大選之日則是他們四年來最開心的一天。
佛蒙特大學高級計算中心的數學家、計算機科學家皮特?道茲和克里斯?丹佛斯創造了一種“感應器”，它能夠探測230萬博客，收集以“我覺得”或“我現在覺得”開頭的句子。每個句子根據配有1034個詞的計分系統得出快樂分數，從1到9不等。例如，“勝利”這個詞的平均得分是8.87分，“天堂”的平均得分是8.72分，“煎餅”是6.08分，而“自殺”是1.25分。
他們說這一“快樂儀”顯示去年十一月份美國大選之日是四年來博友們最快樂的一天，因為“驕傲”這個詞高頻率地出現，而“流行天王”死亡那天則是博友們最傷心的日子之一。
“像博客這種個人網上寫作空間的迅速發展讓我們有機會即時測量情感的程度，”他們在題為《測量大范圍使用書面表達的快樂指數：歌、博客和總統》報告中說。
他們的研究收集了近1000萬個句子，研究報告在本周的《快樂研究》期刊中發表。
道茲說：“我們的方法只適用于大范圍應用的文本，例如從網絡上可以找得到的詞句。任何一個單獨的句子可能都無法說明什么。因為在個體的表達中有太多的變數。”
兩位科學家說，盡管博客寫手可能比普通人群更年輕，受教育程度更高，他們卻能夠廣泛地代表美國民眾的聲音。
而且，和那些對參與者當場進行調查的其他快樂研究不同，這些博客寫手是在一種自然舒服的環境中寫作。
丹佛斯說：“他們以為自己是在和朋友交流，但是（因為博客是公開的），我們卻在他們背后觀看著一切。”
道茲和丹佛斯說最近的社會科學數據顯示人們在各個年齡階段的感覺基本上都差不多，而他們倆的調查結果卻與之相反。
他們的調查方法顯示出來的結果是青少年是最不快樂的，他們或多或少地使用“惡心”、“恨”、“愚蠢”、“悲傷”、“壓抑”、“無聊”、“孤獨”、“生氣”和“肥胖”這些字眼。而隨著年紀增長，人們會變得快樂一些，直到他們進入老年，那時快樂指數又會下降。
但是兩位科學家說要知道人們的頭腦中到底在想什么是不可能的。
“我們的研究是一個數據上的調查，”丹佛斯說，“而不是要發展成一個理論。”
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（英語點津 陳丹妮編輯） |
