SA has little to be cheerful about, gauge shows
THE majority of us are sad, angry and feel disgusted at the ongoing power cuts, and the negative emotions are most likely to persist as Eskom continues implementing high stages of load shedding.
The Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index, used to measure happiness by tracking real time sentiment on social media, particularly Twitter, has been at its lowest level since April, reflecting distrust in government officials.
But it was last Sunday, when stage six load shedding was announced, that the index drastically dropped to below average.
The index was developed by well-being economists Prof Talita
Greyling from the University of Johannesburg, Dr Stephanié Rossouw from Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand, as well as their partner Afstereo, the suppliers of real time data.
It was first launched in South Africa, New Zealand and Australia in 2019.
More than 20 European governments are utilising the index but South Africa has not warmed to it yet.
According to Greyling, when compared to European countries, South Africa showed very little happiness.
She said besides happiness, the GNH Index also gauged different emotions including fear, anger, sadness, joy, anticipation and surprise.
“Measuring well-being is of utmost importance. It is the goal of any government and that of South Africa to maximise the quality of well-being of people,” said Greyling.
“How do we know if we are maximising the quality of life of people?
Only if we measure it. What you do not measure you cannot manage.”
Greyling said people did not always make decisions based on the principle of the “reasonable man” but often decisions were driven by emotions; hence their methodology involved the sentiment analysis of tweets which were then coded as positive, negative or neutral.
This week anger seemed to settle but the professors observed an uptick in sadness and fear.
“Fears are related to not having power, the economic consequences which are poverty, lower economic growth, businesses closing down, unemployment and children that cannot study,” she said.
“What we find is that when there is an increase in anger and in disgust it can tip over into other kinds of strikes or some kind of crime.
“These are leading indicators, if we see these increase significantly we should be aware that something might happen.
“For policy makers, it is a warning to have some type of intervention to change that mood around, to convince people there is a plan, to try to get that negative emotion into positive emotion, with hope and optimism.”
Greyling said people were at their happiest when watching sport, on public holidays as well as on special days such as Mother’s and Father’s days. Pre Covid-19, it was also during musical events.
“We are making progress as a government department has shown an interest. I hope that South African policy makers will take notice of this and use it.”