Top 7 Things Tweeps Are Thankful For

It’s the end of the year. The economy is bad. Unemployment is high. Things look pretty tough and to be honest, kind of bleak. Sometimes I think I’ve lost my rose colored glasses. Then, I saw a post on Facebook. A friend of mine was challenging her friends to post something they were thankful for each day up until Thanksgiving. I thought, ‘What the heck! I’ll give it a try.’

I found myself not only getting into what I was thankful for, but being interested in what other people were posting thanks for as well. This coupled with my fascination with visual information (hence, my slight obsession with InformationIsBeautiful.net) I decided to take to Twitter and see what people were thankful for. These are my preliminary findings.

Now, I do have to provide a preface. Yes, I do have a graduate degree so I know how to run a real academic research project. However, the methodology I used here, specifically the sampling and code sheet for the content analysis I used may not hold to the highest standards in academia. But for the purposes of this blog and preliminary findings…they work just fine. I plan on doing more extensive research and posting those findings on Thanksgiving, so stay tuned!

In the meantime here are the...

Top 7 things I found on Twitter that people are giving thanks for:

1. Friends & Family

Ex. “Thankful 4 family, friends, & twerps”, “… thankful for every moment I have with my husband and sweet babygirl”

Sidenote: I think that this being the number one theme that I found so uplifting because, even when times are tough, we still seem to have our priorities straight.

2. Experiences & Life In General

Ex. “Thanks for the great time!”, “…thankful for my life”

3. RT/Follow

Ex. “Thanks for the RT @usernamehere”, “Thanks for the follow @usernamehere”

4. Day of the Week

My sample included tweets that were tweeted out on a Friday. You get the picture.

5. Job

Ex. “… so thankful for having my job!”

6. Religion

Ex. “Thank God for x, y, and z”

7. Information

Ex. “Thanks for the heads up. Link was helpful”, “Thanks for the video!”

What do you think? Does this sound like it's a bit right? And below is my little visual. It’s in the form of two hands for a reason. If you’re a teacher, you might figure this one out because the idea came from my friend who teaches Pre-K. If not, you’ll just have to come back on Thanksgiving to find out!

If you have a Twitter account and would like to be included in next round and possibly be featured on the Thanksgiving day post, use the hashtag #thankful so I can find you on Twitter. Thanks and enjoy!

Oh, and one more image. Here is how it all started, including the things I tweeted out that I was thankful for. Looks like I got number one covered!

-Rae is a blogger for The Daily Vine. Check out her bio to see where her view comes from.