Psychologists have made a site where you can plug in your Twitter handle, and get a scientifically grounded analysis of your personality.
It evaluates "junk words" that seem insignificant, like pronouns (you, they), articles (a, the), and prepositions (to, with).
There are only about 400 junk words, but they account for half of our speech.
The scientists, from the University of Texas at Austin and the Auckland Medical School in New Zealand, have found in their research that you can learn a lot about someone by these little words they use.
"Across dozens of studies, junk words have proven to be powerful markers of peoples psychological states," the researchers write on their website. "When individuals use the word I, for example, they are briefly paying attention to themselves. People experiencing high levels of physical or mental pain automatically orient towards themselves and begin using I-words at higher rates. I-use, then, can reflect signs of depression, stress or insecurity."
One of their studies even analyzed a long-lost play purported to be written by Shakespeare. They used their "junk words" evaluation, and concluded that the beginning of the play was likely authored by the Bard, but that another author wrote the end.
The new site gives you scores for your emotional, social, and thinking styles. The researchers plan to use the data they gather from people analyzing their tweets in a future study, though your information will remain confidential.
And since it is part of ongoing research, you can't assume the analysis is a "proven" marker of your personality. The junk words are merely correlated with certain personality traits, as one of the researchers told The New Yorker. The words you use are not an indication that you definitely have certain traits, just that it's more likely that you do.
So how accurate is it?
When I plugged in my Twitter handle, the site said I was mostly upbeat and worried emotionally, and had a high sensory thinking style.
I was appalled that my highest "social style" ranking was "spacey/valley girl." But when I shared this finding with my coworkers, they assured me that was an accurate reading. Granted, I did spell the word crazy with three y's in my last tweet the site analyzed, so perhaps it has a point.
—Rebecca Harrington (@HarringtonBecca) April 13, 2016
What do your tweets say about you? Find out at analyzewords.com.
