World Reacts to Osama bin Laden's Death

From The Daily Mail.

With literally 27,796 news sources reporting on the same thing (and that number climbing by the second), there is really only one story I could post today. It's a bit surreal to watch Americans celebrate someone's death, but in this case it seems entirely justified and understandable, and I admit to being swept up by the jubilation (at least over Twitter, since no celebrations happened near me).

With all this going on at home, it's interesting to see how the rest of the world is reacting. There are too many stories to sort through right now, but you can read reactions from many leaders around the world at Al Jazeera. They kind of say what you'd expect--western countries say it's a great victory, Hamas says bin Laden was a martyr, yadda yadda--but as time goes on and people have had time to think, they will become more enlightening to read.

There's no question that terrorism will continue, but this killing has huge symbolic weight, and it's been wonderful to shed our differences and experience a sense of togetherness with other Americans, even if it only lasts a few days or so.

Twitter Users Tend to Stay in Groups with the Same Mood as Them

From HIMSHILP.

Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday, folks, but I actually couldn't find a new story to cover. It was all old news, except for continuing coverage of the tragic events following the tsunami in Japan, which are outside my ability to handle. For more up-to-date information on relief efforts and the disaster itself, visit Google's excellent crisis center here.

As for what's going on in the world of positive psychology, Online Social Media reports that Twitter users group themselves together by mood. This information comes from a new study published in New Scientist, probably timed to coincide with Twitter's upcoming fifth anniversary.

This Cornell University study examined around 102,000 Twitter users over six months, totaling around 129 million tweets. The researchers analyzed words in the tweets to determine users' subjective wellbeing. They found that users of happy words tend to stick with other happy tweeters, and "unhappy" tweeters stay in their own groups.

Johann Bollen, main author of the study, says, "Beyond demographic features such as age, sex, and race, even psychological states such as 'loneliness' can be assortative in a social network." The research doesn't cover why this might be, but it seems that the old adage of "misery loves company" holds true, even in a massive, wide-open, semi-anonymous social network like Twitter.