China Future City Lab, Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and Center for Real Estate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
State Key Laboratory of Resources and Environmental Information System, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
Nat Hum Behav. 2019 Mar;3(3):237-243. doi: 10.1038/s41562-018-0521-2. Epub 2019 Jan 21.
High levels of air pollution in China may contribute to the urban population's reported low level of happiness. To test this claim, we have constructed a daily city-level expressed happiness metric based on the sentiment in the contents of 210 million geotagged tweets on the Chinese largest microblog platform Sina Weibo, and studied its dynamics relative to daily local air quality index and PM concentrations (fine particulate matter with diameters equal or smaller than 2.5 μm, the most prominent air pollutant in Chinese cities). Using daily data for 144 Chinese cities in 2014, we document that, on average, a one standard deviation increase in the PM concentration (or Air Quality Index) is associated with a 0.043 (or 0.046) standard deviation decrease in the happiness index. People suffer more on weekends, holidays and days with extreme weather conditions. The expressed happiness of women and the residents of both the cleanest and dirtiest cities are more sensitive to air pollution. Social media data provides real-time feedback for China's government about rising quality of life concerns.
中国的空气污染水平较高，可能导致城市居民的幸福感较低。为了验证这一说法，我们构建了一个基于中国最大微博平台新浪微博上 2.1 亿条带有地理标签的微博内容的情感分析的每日城市幸福感指标，并研究了其与当地每日空气质量指数和 PM 浓度（直径等于或小于 2.5μm 的细颗粒物，是中国城市中最显著的空气污染物）之间的动态关系。使用 2014 年中国 144 个城市的每日数据，我们记录到，平均而言，PM 浓度（或空气质量指数）每增加一个标准差，幸福感指数就会下降 0.043（或 0.046）个标准差。人们在周末、节假日和极端天气条件下会感到更痛苦。女性和污染最严重和最清洁城市的居民的幸福感对空气污染更为敏感。社交媒体数据为中国政府提供了有关生活质量问题的实时反馈。
