Do we really feel fine?
After the lecture last week I was quite moved by one of the examples that was shown about API’s and Data Visualisation. I was not aware of the capabilities that an API can do. We Feel Fine is an exploration of human emotion on a global scale throughout the blogosphere. Every few minutes their system searches the world’s newest blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”, and when it finds a phrase, it records the full sentence up to the period and identifies all the feelings expressed within the sentence (sadness, happy, depressed, etc).
The age, gender, location and local weather conditions are also recorded. The depth of the presentation and user interface here is absolutely amazing, and a gorgeous execution. Around 15-20,000 new feelings are added to the database every day, there are currently 3.3 million feelings from over 833,000 people. The findings are just mind boggling and really quite fun to read.
A quote example: “I can make it until then I’ll be very satisfied and feel very accompliashed”
The greatest factor that I find very engaging is that We Feel Fine uses a technique called passive observation. Throughout the world, people live their lives and We Feel Fine scans the worlds blogs and looks at what people are writing. These people don’t know their being watched or interviewed. Because of this you end up with very honest and sincere responses. Because of this it makes every emotion believable.
“I often wonder whether the Internet has made the world smaller and made us feel more connected, or if in fact it has made us feel smaller and more isolated. The “I Feel Fine” project explores human emotion in a way that you can easily find someone who feels just like you do, except they are on the other side of the world.” - Rosa Patonage 2009
A photo example: “I feel the warmth of the stars”
People leave their emotional footprints scattered across the World Wide Web everyday. I feel that its a way of recycling and connecting the world. No doubt that my last statement will now end up as a “I feel” quote…:-)
