A unique study by researchers at the University of Vermont that analyzed Twitter usage by geography confirms why Santa Barbarans are so willing to pay the high price it takes to live here: The city comes in near the top as the 38th happiest “urban” area in the United States, with the nearly 7,000 regional tweets analyzed in 2011 trending much more positive than negative, thanks to the preponderence of “beach,” “lol,” and “hahahas.”
Coming in first out of the 373 cities included was Napa, with Beaumont, Texas in dead last. Statewise, California clocks in at 13th, sandwiched between a happier Arizona and less stoked Florida, with Hawaii declared happiest and Louisiana the least.
The study’s results coincided with a number of other social surveys, with sadness stretching across poor parts of the South, where tweets contained lots of profanity.
Read the study here and the specific analysis of cities here.
