Neelam Rahim | neelam@radioislam.co.za

2-minute read
24 April 2023 | 21:47 CAT

Photo Credit: TimesLIVE

You are not alone if you are angry and unhappy about the constant load shedding every year. The recent Happiness Index has shown South Africans have become angry because of load shedding. These negative emotions doubled year on year, in line with the recent move to Stage 6 load shedding.

The University of Johannesburg’s Professor Talita Greyling, a well-being economist, speaks to Radio ISlam International on the crisis of loadshedding and highlights statistics to investigate how the continuous blackouts impact the emotions of South Africans.

A similar study was conducted between 13 and 16 April 2022, showing that negative feelings have increased considerably to double the amount in 2023.

Prof Greyling said the analysis shows the emotions of disgust at the inability of Eskom and the government to address the problem, and sadness is increasing due to the bleak outlook of the future.

“People are fearful of the implications of loadshedding for the economy which include losing their jobs,” she outlines.

Happier people are more productive, healthier and more supportive of institutions, Prof Greyling adds.

The happiness and emotion levels are measured using the Gross National Happiness Today Index.

The project was launched in April 2019 by Greyling and Dr Stephanie Rossouw from the Auckland University of Technology. It broadcasts monitoring service Afstereo to measure the real-time emotions and happiness levels of South Africans.

They construct the indices by extracting real-time tweets from Twitter, encoding them using natural language processing (machine learning methods) and applying a balancing equation to derive happiness and eight emotion measures hourly and daily.

Listen to the full interview on Sabahul Muslim with host Moulana Habib Bobat.