Somerville is collaborating with The H(app)athon app to increase the happiness of different people. The H(app)athon app conducts surveys which determines a person’s over all happiness and well being. People are not scored on their happiness but are given pictures that are suppose to display their happiness at that time.The survey takes about two weeks to complete and through its course direct messages will be sent to the survey takers.”The first prompt is designed to gauge your actions/mood during the day, and the second at night (our “Daily Diary”)”. This app is created to help people realize what makes them happy as well as what they can do to achieve a higher level of happiness. Officials believe that new ideas and techniques in order to reach happiness will emerge from the app. According to Mayor Joseph Curtatone, “It’s an ambitious idea. But I know that the data will help us run the City as much as it will help
residents find resources that they might not know about otherwise.” The H(app)athon Project is planning to start in 2014.

Hedonometer.org is using Twitter to measure how people are feeling at the moment. The happiness that is measured is determined by what people tweet that day.The Daily Happiness Averages for twitter from September 2008 to the present has dropped significantly.

Researchers at the New England Complex Institute are trying to find out people’s happiness by looking at NYC’s geographical happiness and to compare them to different places around the world. Karla Bertrand, Maya Bialik, Kawandeep Virdee, Andreas Gros and Yaneer Bar-Yam created a map that shows where the majority of the happier tweets are in the world and the angrier tweets. Central Park is said to be a very happy place because the tweets that are coming from there by the people are blissful. Other places that are said to have the happiest people include, Marcus Garvey Park, Astoria Park, Times Square and Prospect Park. Some of the places in the world that don’t promote happiness include the Brooklyn Bridge, LaGuardia Airport, and Penn Station. It is important for city officials to pin point what is causing happiness and/or anguish in their city, so that change can be implemented to ensure better living situations and promote happiness for the people.