Study Ties Mainland Pollution, Social Media Blues

Eye-watering, throat-scratching air pollution is a major driver of big city blues on the mainland, according to a study published on Monday that matched social network chatter with fine-particle pollution levels.

"The take-away is simple," lead author Siqi Zheng, an associate professor at MIT and director of the university's China Future City Lab, said.

"Higher levels of air pollution lower people's happiness in the world's most populous country."

Dirty air is not the only blight on life in urban China, which is also plagued by soaring housing prices, worries over food safety, and poor public services.

But health-wreaking pollution – especially microscopic bits from coal-fired power plants and factories that settle in the lungs – is a long-standing gripe of the country's burgeoning middle class.

On polluted days, people are also more likely to engage in impulsive and risky behaviour they may later regret, observational studies have shown.

Awareness of the problem and its consequences is very high among city dwellers, a fact not lost on the government.

After an embarrassing episode in 2012 when daily pollution levels published on Twitter by the US embassy in Beijing were consistently higher than official figures for the city, the country's leaders declared war on smog-clogged air. (AFP)