This brief reports findings from a study offering an exploration of how social media, and in particular twitter, can be used to evaluate social behavior in public spaces. It tries to understand if people express more positive sentiment when they are in parks as compared to when they are in other places. Specifically, among Twitter users in New York City, if people who visit parks express more positive sentiment on Twitter compared to the sentiment they express on Twitter in other places. This research uses social media to develop a methodology for understanding the varying levels of feelings in urban green space, focusing on New York City, studying nearly 3.3 million geo-located tweets between June 2016 and December 2017.
Download the two-page journal brief using the link at the bottom of this page.
Plunz, R., Zhou, Y., Carrasco Vintimilla, M., McKeown, K., Yu, T., Uguccioni, L., & Sutto, M.P. (2019). Twitter sentiment in New York City parks as measure of well-being. Landscape and Urban Planning, 189(2019), 235-246. Access the full article here.