Posted 10/12/09 at 06:37:09 PM by Jason Barry

Adam Kramer has been working on a project at Facebook aggregating 100 million users’ status updates into a database and parsing it for positive and negative words. When you map this data over a timeline spanning a couple years, what do you have? The Facebook United States Gross National Happiness Index.

They have taken precautions so no one’s privacy is in trouble, but they tally a score each day based upon the status updates’ positive and negative emotion words. Some of the conclusions are obvious and expected: people are much happier (9.7% happier) on Friday than Monday—the saddest day of the week. Further, according to the study, two of the saddest days of the year were the days when Heath Ledger and Michael Jackson died.

The other fairly common spikes fell around major U.S. holidays: Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the fourth of July.

You can check out the index yourself over on the Facebook site. How accurate do you think this type of “polling” can be, and do you think its findings are credible?

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Posted 07/26/08 at 01:28:15 AM by Paul Lilly

How much time each day do you spend playing TF2? Do you find yourself stumbling through the web when you should be working instead? If so, you may have an affliction that requires professional attention, or so claims Professor Joseph Ferrari of DePaul University in Chicago.

"The subject is seen as a joke," said Ferrari. "But the social and economic implications are huge. These people need therapy. They need to change the way they act and think." 

According to Ferrari, chronic procrastination has become such a big problem that it needs to be recognized by clinicians. By his own estimates, 15 to 20 percent of people fall into this category, and he says it doesn't matter the person's age, sex, or background because everyone is equally susceptible.

Ferrari isn't alone in his beliefs, and research by Professor Piers Steel from Calgary University claims chronic procrastination has risen sharply in recent decades and now affects one in four people. He says even email notifications are part of the problem, costing the economy $70 billion a year.

Has technology really pushed people to procrastinate more than they ever have before? Post your thoughts below, and do it now - your work will wait.

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