Every day, millions of people share how they feel with the people who matter the most in their lives through status updates on Facebook. These updates are tiny windows into how people are doing. They’re brief, to the point and descriptive of what’s going on this week, today or right now.

Grouped together, these updates are indicative of how we are collectively feeling. Measuring how well-off, happy or satisfied with life the citizens of a nation are is part of the Gross National Happiness movement. When people in their status updates use more positive words — or fewer negative words — then that day as a whole is counted as happier than usual. […]

(via Gross National Happiness – apps.facebook.com)

Unsurprisingly, Christmas is by far the happiest day of our year. More surprising is that it’s also the single day most people seem to be unhappy, though by not nearly the same degree. In either case, the figures are probably boosted by the simple fact that many of us are with families, and don’t have much else to do.

Citations:
Kramer, A. D. I. (2010). An unobtrusive model of “gross national happiness.” Proc. CHI, 2010, ACM Press, 287-290.