News of the week 2 by Ariadna Navarro.

- Header: 

Chinese ‘tweets’ hint that happiness drops as air pollution rises

- Summary:

Air pollution is linked in China by heart disease, cancer, cognitive decline and even risky behavior. Now, a study has analyze the air quality and says that poor air quality may also harm people's sense of well-being.

To reach that conclusion, some researchers looked at a population’s overall mood in each of 144 Chinese cities. The researchers then compared their happiness findings with daily levels of airborne particles. The analysis revealed a link between poor air quality and lower overall mood. 

The results show that people expressed more happiness on weekends and on holidays and that there's less happiness when the weather became hot. When high air pollution coincided with weekends, happiness plummeted. And when pollution rose, happiness declined more in women than in men, though the study did not reveal why that was. Residents in China’s cleanest cities were also more likely to express unhappiness when air quality worsened. 

Finally, the researches used their tool to analyze the mood effects of being in nature. They found that people use fewer negative words associated with analytical thinking, such as “no,” “don’t” and “never,” and more positive words like “beautiful,” “happy” and “fun.”

- Link of reference: https://www.sciencenews.org/article/chinese-tweets-hint-happiness-drops-air-pollution-rises 

- Date: January 30, 2019

- Scientific scope: air pollution

- Glossary:

·Plummeted: fall or drop straight down at high speed.

- Commentary:

I knew that in China there was a lot of air pollution, but I would never imagined that it would affect in people's behaviour in that form. If there weren't scientific evidences I wouldnt have believe that theory, but there are verificated evidences and I believe in them. I find this curious but also problematic because the air pollution could affect the relationships of people. It would be cool that scientists would create some stuff for avoid this but i think that it wont happen until a lot of years.