Christiaan008's video: OHM2013: Happiness: The Metadata

For more information visit: http://bit.ly/OHM13_web To download the video visit: http://bit.ly/OHM13_down Playlist OHM 2013: http://bit.ly/OHM13_pl Speaker: Anwen The pursuit of happiness is an age-old meme that desperately requires an update to meet the needs of the networked nerd. Here's how and why. To paraphrase Eric S. Raymond, every (Open Data) project starts with an itch you have to scratch. My "itch" had already been the topic of mental health in hacker and activist communities for quite some time - but with the death of Aaron Swartz in Jan.2013, the need to scratch became unbearable. As more and more parts of everyday life move online, the Internet is more noticeably turning into a "psychological" space. (Maybe it's been that way all along, but in any case, "special-needs" networks and increasingly public communication of mental issues are on the rise.) And despite the development of relatively new research angles within "Internet psychology" and big data, a lot of Nerds feel underserviced by conventional psychology. It is the networked public itself, not the psychologists and experts, that is finding new ways of dealing with the emotional demands of a specific demographic. Aaron's death showed us how a wave of empathy and sorrow can spread globally in real-time -- are such metrics already indicators of another, more sensitive and compassionate web? How do we change online "life quality"? Are our identities lost in transmission, negotiated somewhere between Facebook profile neurosis and the statistical glitches of OKCupid user data? Will Big Data finally make us all happier? These are some of the very simple questions I want to discuss - along with some very messy answers on the matter of happiness, mental health and big data. Ideally this talk will include an "Eudaimonia 101", a debate on World-Coping for nerds, supported by current examples, projects and community developments, as well as ample time for discussion and questions.