Simply put by the creators of ‘wefeelfine’ the site is
‘an exploration of human emotion on a global scale’
Each dot whirling around mindlessly on the page represents an emotion posted on a blog by someone. The system scans blogs all over the internet in search of the words in a sentence ‘i feel’ or ‘i am feeling’ along with 5,000 pre-identified feelings (in the form of adjectives and adverbs). If you click on a dot it will show you the feeling anonymously on the top of the page.
However if you then click on the words of the feeling it is a direct link to the blog it came from. This is where i think that the boundaries are pushed a little. When people post something on a blog quite often they don’t realize how accessible it can be. They may only be expressing themselves to people who know them, not realizing that now with a site like this your feelings can be seen by anyone in the world. People who you may not want looking at your profile etc can easily do so. In the sites FAQ section it says that you can e-mail them if you want a particular emotion removed, but what if you never even know it’s on there??
If a feeling has a picture with it, the picture is also saved and is said to represent the words. I really like this particular part of the site as if you find an image and sentence that fit together well you can save it, it can be a nice piece of art or used for a screen saver or postcard for example.
Jonathon Harris & Sep Kamvar speak about the mission of the site-
‘an artwork authored by everyone, it will grow and change as we grow and change,reflecting whats on our blogs, whats in our hearts, whats on our minds. We hope it makes the world seem a little smaller, and we hope it helps people see beauty in the everyday ups and downs of life’
I wonder if my feeling ends up on wefeelfine.org …. i feel uneasy that anyone, anywhere can see what i write and how i express myself but then again…why do i continue to do so?
Overall i do like the set-up of the website, i like interactive websites that intrigue you and will keep you going back and wanting to show them to others. How they provide the statistical information is clear, fun and easy to use. Showing differences of feelings between men and women, of different ages, on certain days, with certain types of weather, in a certain place.
Is there actually a difference however between age groups and their feelings on the internet or are people who use the internet on the same wavelength so to speak? I think that everyone goes through different feelings throughout their life, but i don’t think what age you are depends on how you feel. I think that it is whatever is happening to you specifically at that time that is the outcome to your emotion. Everyone feels happy, sad, content, fine, emotional, great, undervalued, loved, hopeful etc… i dont believe that their is a specific age that a certain feeling happens to you more.
Tags: emotion, feelings, i am feeling, i feel, wefeelfine
