Recently, we found out that Miserable Monday might not be anything but a myth. As avid fans of the idea of a complete banishment of Mondays, it will take more than a couple of news articles to convince us. Luckily, Ethersource is more than ready to clear up any doubts.
For some time, we have been monitoring the Swedish domain of social media, and how people are feeling when talking about themselves. The curves have been steadily working their ups and downs. However, these past few months we have been noticing a very curious occurrence. First, let’s take a look at this graph.
What we are seeing is a curve representing the general happiness of people when speaking of themselves, for a period of time around March earlier this year, measured using an index we call Positivity Propensity Index (PPI). It’s not a particularly exciting graph, other than affirming what has already been stated: People do seem to speak more fondly of themselves when weekends are upon them. But other than that, there doesn’t seem to be any certain weekday that stands out among others. Our previous hard stance against the impartiality of research might have starten to soften up a bit.
Now, let’s continue on to the peculiarities.
This is a graph from the beginning of May until today. For this graph’s sudden change to make any sense, you might need to obtain some background info in Swedish culture, and especially in a holiday called Midsommar – a day full of culinary deliciousness and drinking. This is the peak of June 23 you see, and what happens thereafter seems to indicate that Swedes are no longer slaves of time. Suddenly, Tuesday no longer differs from Saturday, people are generally happier, and the regularities we clearly could see earlier in spring starts to become more clouded. Vacation has arrived.
Swedish social media has yet to return to its normal, moody self. But surely, it seems inevitable.
Winter is indeed coming.
