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An Italian Composite Subjective Well-Being Index: The Voice of Twitter Users from 2012 to 2017

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Abstract

Since 2012, driven by the desire to propose a subjective well-being index (SWBI) complementary to the traditional measures, with high time and space frequency, our team evaluates, analysing Twitter data, a composite index that captures various aspects and dimensions of individual and collective life. The SWBI is a multidimensional indicator whose components were inspired by the dimensions adopted for the Happy Planet Index provided by the New Economic Foundation. In detail, it consists of eight dimensions that describe three different areas: personal well-being, social well-being and well-being at work. The Italian subjective well-being index (\(\hbox {SWBI}_{{ITA}}\)), that we display here, audits the Italian subjective well-being revealed by tweets acquired via the public Twitter API, written in the Italian language, and posted from Italy from January 2012 to December 2017. Around 1–5% of the data includes geo-referenced information, which allows us to provide an index at local level. The Twitter data analysis is carried on with a human supervised sentiment analysis method, the Integrated Sentiment Analysis (iSA) algorithm. In this work, after a weighting procedure adopted to partially overcome the selection bias caused by the use of data from social network, we describe the \(\hbox {SWBI}_{{ITA}}\) dimensions in the considered period at the regional level. Moreover, for some dimensions, for which a similar currently available measure provided by Italian official statistics exists, comparisons are proposed emphasizing novelties, similarities and differences.

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Notes

  1. Penetration data from the We Are Social and Hootsuite’s report (“Digital in 2019”, Jan 2019; available at http://wearesocial.com): looking at the world population 57% (+9.1%) has Internet access, and 45% (+9%) has a social media account and makes an active use of it, while in Italy these percentages are respectively 92% (+27%) and 59% (+2.9%). Annual digital growth from January 2018 to January 2019 in brackets.

  2. Notice that Valle d’Aosta region has been dropped from the analysis because, considering that it consists of a single province, the proposed approach is not applicable.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via Conservatorio, 7, 20122, Milan, Italy

    S. M. Iacus, S. Salini & E. Siletti

  2. Department of Law, Economics and Culture, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Via Sant’Abbondio, 12, 22100, Como, Italy

    G. Porro

Authors
  1. S. M. Iacus
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  2. G. Porro
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  3. S. Salini
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  4. E. Siletti
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Correspondence to E. Siletti.

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Appendix

Appendix

See Figs. 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20.

Fig. 9
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Distribution of the emotional well-being (\(\mathtt {emo}\)) for the Italian regions

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Fig. 10
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Distribution of the emotional well-being (\(\mathtt {emo}\)) in the 24 quarters from 2012 to 2017

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Distribution of life satisfaction (\(\mathtt {sat}\)) for the Italian regions

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Distribution of life satisfaction (\(\mathtt {sat}\)) in the 24 quarters from 2012 to 2017

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Distribution of vitality (\(\mathtt {vit}\)) for the Italian regions

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Distribution of vitality (\(\mathtt {vit}\)) in the 24 quarters from 2012 to 2017

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Distribution of resilience and self-esteem (\(\mathtt {res}\)) for the Italian regions

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Distribution of resilience and self-esteem (\(\mathtt {res}\)) in the 24 quarters from 2012 to 2017

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Distribution of positive functioning (\(\mathtt {fun}\)) for the Italian regions

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Distribution of positive functioning (\(\mathtt {fun}\)) in the 24 quarters from 2012 to 2017

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Distribution of relationships (\(\mathtt {rel}\)) for the Italian regions

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Distribution of relationships (\(\mathtt {rel}\)) in the 24 quarters from 2012 to 2017

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Iacus, S.M., Porro, G., Salini, S. et al. An Italian Composite Subjective Well-Being Index: The Voice of Twitter Users from 2012 to 2017. Soc Indic Res 161, 471–489 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-020-02319-6

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