Does going to work make people miserable?

Study finds that most people are happier when they are not at work.

LONDON: The moods of people, who are happy in the morning, plummets during the day at the office, a two-year-long international study has found.

Most people who wake up in a good mood see their cheerfulness evaporate during the day, reports the Daily Express.

Scientists from the Cornell University in New York used social networking site Twitter to track the moods of 2.4 million people across the world for over two years.

They found that most people are happier when they are not at work.

Most cheerful messages are posted on the website in the morning and close to midnight. But the mood plummets during working hours, says the study published in the journal Science.

Positive messages are more common at weekends.

"The patterns were reflected in cultures and countries throughout the world but shifted with the difference in time and work schedule. For example, positive tweets and late-morning mood peaks were more prominent on Fridays and Saturdays in the United Arab Emirates, where the traditional working week is Sunday through Thursday," researcher Michael Macy said.

The researchers also found that the amount of sleep and the length of daylight hours affected people's emotions.

They also looked at the effect of seasons on Twitter posts, and found that mood dropped as "winter blues" caught up and days gradually became shorter.