Twitter shows we get up happy but get grumpier as the day wears on

Is there anything that we cannot learn from Twitter? It seems from a study of 509 million posts (wonder what p-value they used for the testing?) on Twitter that while we start the day happy, its downhill all the way. I am going back to bed.

Early to Bed, Early to Rise... Depends on the TV Schedule in Your Time Zone

The Chicago Journals website provides a useful summary (here) of a recent paper in the Journal of Labour Economics: Hamermesh, Daniel S., Caitlin Knowles Myers, and Mark L. Pocock (2008): “Cues for Timing and Coordination: Latitude, Letterman, and Longitude.”

...Daylight Saving Time has its roots in the Standard Time Act of 1918... Last year, Daylight Saving was extended by four weeks. Although the prime-time television schedule is a “relic of the technology of radio transmission” — it was created when signals could not be broadcast across the country — it remains a powerful cue. Reflecting on his own weekday television watching schedule, Hamermesh recalled, “I lived twenty years in the Eastern Time Zone, I used to stay up until 11:45 p.m. to watch the monologue on the Tonight Show. Living in Texas, I typically turn out the lights at 10:45 p.m., when the monologue is done."

...The authors... use...the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which enabled them to observe how Americans split their time between their three most time-consuming activities: work, sleep, and television watching. After merging ATUS with sunrise and sunset data, the authors found that while natural daylight patterns have some effect on people’s life patterns, the demands of global business—market openings, etc. — and regular television schedules, demarcate the boundaries of most Americans’ lives.