Australia develops Twitter tool to gauge world's emotions

Posted on May 21, 2014

SYDNEY: Australian researchers unveiled on Tuesday a Twitter tool to map moods around the world in real-time to help improve the allocation of mental health services.

The online tool, called "We Feel", analyses up to 32,000 tweets per minute - about 10 per cent of all English-language tweets - for 600 words that are then linked to emotions such as love, joy, surprise, anger, sadness and fear.

The data will be used to monitor the emotions of individuals and communities across different locations, and "ultimately predict when and where potentially life-saving services are required", said lead researcher Helen Christensen of Australia's Black Dog Institute, which researches and treats mood disorders such a depression.

The large volume of data from Twitter - which says it has 255 million monthly active users worldwide - is analysed with the support of Australia's peak science body, the CSIRO, and Internet giant Amazon's remote computing services.

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Source material from CNA