A planetary mood ring

March 15, 2010

What if there was a central place for all of humanity to text, tweet, email, blog and click in the essence of their mood in the moment — a gigantic feelings aggregator that would provide an emotional pulse check on the planet?

(Emily Kasriel)


That’s a concept that Digital Space CEO Bruce Damer suggested Sunday on BBC World Service program “The Forum.”

“These aggregated feelings would be represented in a color wheel inspired by the mood rings of the 1970s — a “Planetary Mood Ring” that could track the collective emotional shifts triggered by reports of natural disasters like earthquakes or human made crises like financial meltdowns or celebrity breakups.

“Planetary Mood Ring submissions, called ‘moodies,’ could be sorted out by geospatial location and show moods of entire countries, cities or towns, highways, your own neighborhood, office or household. People could enrich the whole Planetary Mood Ring by attaching words, videos and photos to their moodies, letting us all into the cause of their current mood. With all of this mood-data in hand, the planetary populace (or perhaps just your office cubicle-mates) could attempt to move its collective blip from say, amber to aquamarine through the application of artistic or spiritual uplifting exercises and begin to push back on the angst-intensifying effect of global media.

“Could this Planetary Mood Ring help us all to calm down a bit, enter into a state of enhanced presence, thereby allowing us to clear our heads and learn to treat our fellow humans and planet with more care and compassion? This just might work, so I feel it’s worth a try!”