Md Consulting

Facebook has extended its “Gross National Happiness” prototype app to 18 new countries.

The app analyzes words in status updates like “awesome” or “tragic” to track changes in the collective emotional state of its users.

As you might have expected, residents of each country become happier on that country’s holidays and during big events — for example, Spain is happier on Saint Jordi’s Day and U.S. residents are happier around the time of the Super Bowl.

If you find this data interesting, you’ll also appreciate this: Facebook decided a couple of months ago to find out how relationship status affects happiness.