If your happiest tweets come around breakfast and after dinner, you’re not alone. A new study from sociologists at Cornell University found that positive posts to Twitter peak in the morning, taper off in the afternoon, and then rise again in the evening.

Researchers examined tweets from more than two million accounts in 84 countries over a two year period from 2008-2010. They found that despite the wide ranging environmental and cultural differences of their Twitter subjects, posts appeared to reflect a shared biological rhythm.

The significant impact of the study in both media and scientific circles confirms that Twitter is now considered a legitimate tool to measure sentiment, something we’ve believed since its introduction to the digital space. As it becomes increasingly difficult for researchers to conduct surveys by phone, we expect a continued movement toward mining digital data.

As reported by the Associated Press:

Other researchers have turned to Twitter to study political campaigning, to blog postings and Twitter feeds to study emotions, and to Google searches of flu symptoms to predict outbreaks.

“It illustrates a new opportunity for doing social and behavioral science in ways that were really unimaginable even five years ago,” [Cornell sociologist Michael] Macy said.

We’re not scientists here at Connections Media, but we do understand the importance of listening to social media conversations related to our clients and their issues, and acting upon that intelligence to help shape the conversation. We are prepared not only to gather social media data, but also to use that data towards developing smart digital strategies.