The More Facebook Friends You Have, the More Unhappy You Probably Are

This is an interesting one! How many Facebook friends do you have?

A new study has discovered a direct link between the number of friends you have on Facebook and how much of a “socially disruptive narcissist” you are—giving us one more reason to tone down our Facebook addictions.

Researchers at Western Illinois studied 294 college students and found that those with more friends on Facebook tended to score higher on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory questionnaire. They tended to respond more aggressively to comments, change their profile pictures more often, and updated their news feeds more regularly than others.

This may not be all that surprising, but it does provide a bit of motivation to re-evaluate what Facebook does for you, if you fit into one of these categories (and if not, at least you can stop feeling bad about not having very many Facebook friends—it’s probably a good thing).

via lifehacker

Posted by Jake, Co-Founder of MoodPanda.com

“Blue Monday 2012”

“Blue Monday 2012”
by Moodpanda.com

This Monday the 16th of January is “Blue Monday”, said by some to be statistically the most depressing and unhappy day of the year.  Here at moodpanda.com we have been tracking a overall drop in mood as we entered January.

This date is calculated from a number of factors that coincide in the middle of January.  Firstly, people are suffering the come down of the  Christmas season. It is also around this time that credit card bills start to appear on the door mat.

If you started the year with a resolution to make a big change, you may well be one of the millions who have let that slip by the way side by this time in January.

Looking forward, the weather is likely to get colder and with the next Bank holiday not until Easter its easy to see why “Blue Monday” gets its name.

But don’t worry too much, there is something you can do.  Why not logon to moodpanda.com?

MoodPanda.com is a community of friendly people who regularly update their mood, share problems and celebrate each others’ happiness. Testimonials from users have shown that being part of such a caring community, and focussing on one’s happiness, as well as the happiness of others can actually lead to improvement in overall mood. It’s another weapon in our “happiness arsenal” for beating the Winter Blues!
 
Time will tell which day of 2012 will see us at our lowest.  We will soon see how our mood changes with the Olympics approaching.  MoodPanda.com will continue to monitor and report it live on their Website throughout the year

Posted by Ross, Co-Founder of MoodPanda.com

Guest Blog Post - Chloë B’s First Year on MoodPanda

Earlier this week, one of MoodPanda’s users, Chloë B, completed a full year of mood posts, updating her mood every single day for a year!

As she was the first of our Moody Pandas to achieve this, we thought it would be cool to hear about her experience of MoodPanda for the first year! 

A Year of MoodPanda - By Chloë B

As a self-confessed technophile constantly looking out for cool websites, and as a data-loving science student, I have to admit that I was immediately intrigued when I first stumbled across MoodPanda a year ago.  

The idea of tracking my mood and being able to see how it varied over time was appealing — would the days we all have which are “just one of those days” or where you “get out of bed on the wrong side” show up?  Is it true that I “always seem to be smiling”, as some of my friends like to say?


I signed up straight away, and began rating my happiness level between 0 and 10, sometimes just once in a day and sometimes several times. As the weeks went by and more users joined, new features were introduced, including the ability to comment on other people’s mood ratings they’ve chosen to make public.

Combined with the option to send a ‘hug’ to others on the site, I love the way that this gives a sense of community to MoodPanda — there are some names of MoodPanda regulars like me I’ve come to recognise, and it is always nice to see them feeling happy or to post a quick message if they’re feeling sad. And while it might seem surprising, a ‘panda hug’ from someone you have never met can start to shake off a bad mood, just because you know someone else wants to help make you feel better!


Also fun is looking back at the reasons given for particular mood ratings — some recently reported research suggested that coffee may prevent depression  and given that quite a few of my positive mood scores carry the label ‘coffee!’ it looks as though I might have further evidence for that :-)


The calendar page, showing each day of the year as a different colour based on the moods logged for that day, is a nice record of what was going on in my life to make me feel that way.

I can see the elation of finally passing my driving test in January (a solid 10 on the mood scale), the stress of university exams (two weeks of red in June) and a very happy summer (July and August are an expanse of green).  And yes, the “wrong side of bed” days do indeed stand out as negative islands of low mood in the generally positive sea that my friends mention.

I have found the past year using MoodPanda to be a lot of fun and very interesting, and I look forward to another year of the same!  A big thanks to Jake G and Ross L for all their hard work on the site… it’s definitely made me a very happy panda!

- View Chloë B’s Mood Panda

(Tell me why) We don’t like Wednesdays!

(Tell me why) We don’t like Wednesdays!
————————————————————————————————-
Bob Geldof once sang that he doesn’t like Mondays. Apparently this sentiment is not as common as you’d think.

Research from MoodPanda.com, a Bristol based startup, has shown that Wednesday is the unhappiest day of the week, with Monday rating as fairly average overall. As most people would probably expect, the weekend is when we are at our happiest (Saturday especially), and in general it would seem that females rate their happiness lower than males do.

The reasons for unhappiness on Wednesdays could be varied, but one theory is that it is the mid point of the working and school week, the furthest day from a weekend, and therefore the hardest day to get through. So if you find yourself feeling the mid-week slump, be rest assured that you are not alone! The users of MoodPanda.com are right there with you!

Have you ever considered keeping a record of how you’ve spent your day, and seeing how your happiness has changed over time? It can be fascinating, and is so easy to do online.

MoodPanda.com, a micro-mood-blog website and free iPhone app have been allowing thousands of people to track their happiness for over 18 months. Users of the free service can track their personal happiness, share problems with (and support) others who are feeling sad, and make friends along the way.

By posting micro-mood-blog updates, you can build your personal mood diary, with graphs of your happiness, a mood calendar, and lots of other features, letting you look back on what you’ve been doing, and how you were feeling over time.

Focussing on happiness is one step towards living a happier life, and MoodPanda.com can help you do this.

A recent email received from one of MoodPanda’s users: “Your service is greatly appreciated. Being able to track my mood has given me insights into my own psychology that ultimately have led-to an improvement in my quality of life” - Daniel P

MoodPanda.com has full privacy settings built in, allowing you to keep your mood posts private. But for those of us who love to share how we’re feeling, you can also post your mood updates to Facebook and Twitter! Imagine having a mood calendar of all your Facebook updates!

You can join in right now, at www.moodpanda.com, or download the free iPhone app from iTunes.

Have a happy day!
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MoodPanda Mood Tiles Visualization Experiment

Part of a new series of experiments [more coming soon]:
moodpanda.com/visual/tiles/

Visualise recent (shared) posted moods on MoodPanda.com as coloured Mood Tiles

Watch the mood of thousands of real people fade in and out: relax and enjoy; or explore!

You can be part of it. Sign up for an account at www.moodpanda.com and start tracking your mood.

If you like it, feel free to reblog! :-)

5 reasons to track your mood

With moodpanda.com you can track your mood online, for free - it’s a very simple, friendly and fun way to track your mood

#Question: What are five good reasons to track your mood?

In a nutshell, the reason for tracking your mood is to learn more about yourself and achieve better health.

1. Triggers and warning signs. By using a mood diary you can monitor the patterns in your life and identify negative influences (or “triggers”) that you need to avoid, and early warning signs that your health is deteriorating.

2. Wellness strategies. A mood diary can help you to find the small things, as well as the big, that help you to stay well. It can show you the impact of the positive strategies that you adopt on your well-being.

3. Planning for health. Optimism is a case in point. It is designed for a person to bring together an understanding of their triggers, early warning signs or symptoms, and wellness strategies. It gives them a better understanding of their health and helps them to develop a plan for remaining well. That is the key. The purpose of a mood diary should be to plan for wellness, not just keep a record of illness.

4. Actively participate. Rather than be a passive recipient of treatment, or just seek treatment in reaction to a new episode, a mood diary can help you to have more involvement in your health and a sense of control. In general people achieve better health outcomes when they educate themselves and are proactive about their health.

5. A health professional’s dream. By keeping a mood diary you can provide your health professional with a precise, detailed history. It removes the problem of memory recall and gives an accurate picture of what has been happening. It gets to the bottom of what is or isn’t working, which helps them to give more relevant, appropriate advice and treatment.

Every person’s illness is different. As I read elsewhere today, “One Size Fits One”. For many people treatment is difficult, a slow process, or not entirely successful. A good mood diary is an effective way to increase the chance of success.

-Therese Borchard Interviewing James Bishop

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