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Can Well-Being be Measured Using Facebook Status Updates? Validation of Facebook’s Gross National Happiness Index

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  • N. Wang
  • M. Kosinski
  • D. Stillwell
  • J. Rust

Abstract

Facebook’s Gross National Happiness (FGNH) indexes the positive and negative words used in the millions of status updates submitted daily by Facebook users. FGNH has face validity: it shows a weekly cycle and increases on national holidays. Also, happier individuals use more positive words and fewer negative words in their status updates (Kramer 2010 ). We examined the validity of FGNH in measuring mood and well-being by comparing it with scores on Diener’s Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS), administered to an average of 34 Facebook users every day for a year, then aggregated by day, week, month, quarter and half year. FGNH and SWLS were not significantly correlated, with a negative correlation coefficient. Also, aggregated SWLS scores showed a positive relationship with numbers of negative words in status updates. We conclude that FGNH is a valid measure for neither mood nor well-being; however, it may play a role in mood regulation. This challenges the assumption that linguistic analysis of internet messages is related to underlying psychological states. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2014

Suggested Citation

  • N. Wang & M. Kosinski & D. Stillwell & J. Rust, 2014. "Can Well-Being be Measured Using Facebook Status Updates? Validation of Facebook’s Gross National Happiness Index," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 115(1), pages 483-491, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:soinre:v:115:y:2014:i:1:p:483-491
    DOI: 10.1007/s11205-012-9996-9
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Winton Bates, 2009. "Gross national happiness," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 23(2), pages 1-16, November.
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    1. Indy Wijngaards & Owen C. King & Martijn J. Burger & Job Exel, 2022. "Worker Well-Being: What it Is, and how it Should Be Measured," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 17(2), pages 795-832, April.
    2. Olga Bogolyubova & Polina Panicheva & Yanina Ledovaya & Roman Tikhonov & Bulat Yaminov, 2020. "The Language of Positive Mental Health: Findings From a Sample of Russian Facebook Users," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, May.
    3. Indy Wijngaards & Martijn Burger & Job van Exel, 2019. "The promise of open survey questions—The validation of text-based job satisfaction measures," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(12), pages 1-22, December.
    4. Bae, Siye & Jo, Soojin & Shim, Myungkyu, 2023. "United States of Mind under Uncertainty," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 213(C), pages 102-127.
    5. Jianghao Wang & Yichun Fan & Juan Palacios & Yuchen Chai & Nicolas Guetta-Jeanrenaud & Nick Obradovich & Chenghu Zhou & Siqi Zheng, 2022. "Global evidence of expressed sentiment alterations during the COVID-19 pandemic," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 6(3), pages 349-358, March.
    6. Sergey Smetanin, 2022. "Pulse of the Nation: Observable Subjective Well-Being in Russia Inferred from Social Network Odnoklassniki," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 10(16), pages 1-38, August.
    7. Kostopoulos, Dimitrios & Meyer, Steffen, 2018. "Disentangling investor sentiment: Mood and household attitudes towards the economy," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 155(C), pages 28-78.

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