Cape Town - Research done by the GNH.today project shows that the happiness levels in South Africa have been trending upward since the election results were announced in June.
These are the findings of the GNH.today project, launched in April 2019 by Professor Talita Greyling from the University of Johannesburg and Dr Stephanie Rossouw from the Auckland University of Technology.
The research measures happiness in near real-time based on specific emotion words used in Google searches with an index based on X data. The groundbreaking project ended abruptly as Elon Musk pulled the plug on all academic projects in May 2023.
Since then, the GNH.today team, also joined by Professor Frederic Boy from Swansea University, has been developing an index exploring alternative big data sources. They found Google search data to be the most efficient predictor of happiness.
They have presented the newly created index at global forums in Luxembourg, Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia), and France. It has been well received as a robust measure of happiness.
The research has seen a clear analysis on social media users where positive emotion words among South Africans were on the increase just off the back of political shifting period in South Africa.
The increasing words include “hope”, “happiness” and “joy”. However, they also see an increase in negative emotion words such as “bad” and “afraid”, but with a positive net effect.
The increase in both positive and negative words is expected, as it indicates the debate around the newly-appointed Cabinet.
Different parties criticise the portfolio allocations and the ministers appointed. The increased size of the government is also critiqued. On the other hand, there is relief that the Cabinet was announced after almost a month of negotiations. This implies an agreement about power-sharing.
As shown in the Happiness Index of the GNH.today project, it was the much-anticipated announcement by President Cyril Ramaphosa of the new GNU Cabinet on June 30 that affected South Africans positively. The levels increase from 5.36 to 5.42 in the graph.
The index is measured on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 being very unhappy, 5 being neutral, and 10 being very happy.
Greyling explained the mission behind the research project.
“I’m an economist specialising in well-being and happiness. The main goal of any country is to maximise the quality of life, and the quality if life means it’s of wider concept than income. It includes education, health, social relationship.
“If you want to maximise something, you first need to know at what level it is, so if it’s at number 2, 3 or 4 you get to be able to measure it. Another way is to ask someone: ‘How satisfied are you with your life in general?’ The answer you get to that question has been proven by the UN as a valid measure of the quality of life of a person.
“I started using big data from the internet and using that at real time. You can’t use surveys, that’s too late. You need real time and that’s what I did. I don’t think anybody else is doing it.”
Greyling and Rossouw received an international award for their innovative contribution to well-being and quality of life research at the International Conference for Quality-of-Life Studies in Malaysia on June 28.
Greyling said: “I cried when I received the news of this award. People who previously won this award went on to win a Nobel Prize so that was so overwhelming for me.”