I just watched a TED talk on Google Labs’ Ngram Viewer. Google lets you search for words in it’s database of 5 million works from about 1500 to 2008. As an experiment I typed in the words happy and sad to see what I could discover, with some interesting results.
I discovered that happiness increased steadily in the Renaissance up until the end of the Renaissance in the 1700s. Then there was a century of a steady level in happiness from the 1700s to the 1800s. Then it seems the Industrial Revolution triggered a period of declining happiness.
To me the renaissance corresponded to a time of creativity and discovery so happiness increased. The 1700s was a time of adventure and prosperity as the New World was being discovered. So, people were generally satisfied with their lives. During the industrial revolution the world became mechanized and profit and capitalism became more important than creativity, discovery and adventure, so happiness declined. I could be wrong, but that’s my interpretation.
Here is the presentation from Ted.
Have a play with the Ngram Viewer. It’s a lot of fun. If you want, let us know what you find in the comment section below..
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About Danny Sheehan
Danny lives in Hong Kong but is originally from Australia. He is Married to Maggie and together they have two children with whom they enjoy sharing and enjoying an exciting life with daily. Danny's passions are freedom, adventure and discovery, mainly in nature and science but also spiritually. He is a great believer in living in the NOW.
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October 6, 2011 at 12:32 pm
ngram view is pretty nice, never heard of it before. Your analysis makes sense. The industrial revolution impacted our lives way more than we can imagine, just as the information age now is impacting our lives.
Twitter: excitedbylife
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October 7, 2011 at 4:53 am
Hi Nancy, I agree about the information age to some extent, but it seems that social media might be counter balancing the negative impact. People seem to be interacting more socially as a result of platforms such as Facebook.
October 6, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Intriguing and overwhelming too. Good gracious so many books! I used the ngram to check out family relationships and other specifics too.
Ali Bierman recently posted..Earn and Learn for FREE
Twitter: excitedbylife
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October 7, 2011 at 4:51 am
Hi Ali. That’s a great idea thanks for sharing. I will give it a try also.
October 6, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Not knowing what you used to examine the database, you probably have to run checks for happy, happiness, and maybe even joy, if you wish to make decsiions about what people were feeling. Because most indices and search engines do not recognize that happy and happiness are related.
Then, we have the problem as to which books were NOT included in the database. That also can skew results.
Nevertheless, the data is interesting.
Roy A. Ackerman, Ph.D., E.A. recently posted..Proof or Consequences
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October 7, 2011 at 4:49 am
Hi Roy. Your right. It was more for a bit of fun and totally devoid of any proper scientific analysis. One would need to study etymology to do any proper research as words are used differently over time.
October 6, 2011 at 3:24 pm
I find this so interesting and it doesn’t surprise me that happiness declined with the Industrial Revolution. Our priorities got mess up in my opinion…
Twitter: excitedbylife
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October 7, 2011 at 4:43 am
Hi Marian. You certainly got that right. We became part of the machine of capitalism and profit at the expense of our enjoyment of what really matters in Life.
October 6, 2011 at 3:25 pm
Being an ex-psychologist, I couldn’t help but look up hysteria, anxiety, and depression (2 at a time). I’m extremely surprised to see hysteria was so low, especially during the mid to late 1800′s when Freud and his colleagues were “treating” it. I guess there is more info in journals than there was in books. Maybe it was too taboo for the regular readership?
I also did a search for Freud and Jung. Not surprisingly, Jung jumped way ahead beginning in the 1950′s to 1960′s. A lot of his work is actually quite popular with the metaphysical and new age people out there.
Just for fun I also did searches on metaphysical and bible, new age and christian, and pagan and jesus. I was extremely surprised by all of the results. This was great fun, and makes me feel very optimistic today. Thanks!
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October 7, 2011 at 4:41 am
Hi Amethyst, i don’t think every day people would of used the word “hysteria” especially in fictional novels. But I can see them using the words anxiety and depression a lot.
I am glad your research with ngram made you feel positive about the future of humanity. I would be interesting in reading any blog posts you write about your findings.