HSE Master’s Student Measured the Level of Happiness Using Instagram

Mark Evlampiev, student of the Master’s programme 'Project Management: Project Analysis, Investments, and Implementation Technologies', measured the level of happiness in the urban environment using data from the social network Instagram in the city of Perm.

Irina Shafranskaya, Associate Professor at the School of Management, Academic Supervisor of the programme in Marketing, is the project Academic Supervisor.

The GDP per capita is usually used for a comparison of living standards in different countries. In addition, in many cities the level of ‘gross city happiness’ is measured through surveys.

In this study, however, Mark suggested a new approach, using the data from Instagram for project management in the urban environment. The projects are focused on improving residents’ well-being and happiness. 

Evlampiev used two programmes in order to analyse users’ behavior and emotional state that determine the index of happiness. The first programme analyzed the text via special libraries with a collection of words with different assessments (negative, positive, neutral). The programme assessed the words posted by users of Instagram and produced an aggregate. The other programme recognized users’ faces on photos and analyzed their emotions via Emotion Recognition technology.

27 226 photos with geotags in Perm were analyzed during the research. A rating of the most popular places in Perm where people feel happiest was created from the results of the project.