NEW YORK - March 7, 2012 - The millions of daily Twitter updates and Facebook posts about our everyday thoughts are turning out to be some of the best economic and financial data out there, according to recent research.

Now central bankers are starting to take note and are looking for ways to use this data in their ongoing struggle to keep their economies growing.

"Someone makes a nice sandwich and makes a comment on Twitter about it and it's difficult to see how that tells you something about economic conditions," says Indiana University Professor Johan Bollen, one of the co-authors of a study that found that Twitter can predict stock market returns.

But he adds, "From our research, all those thoughts, all those updates combined somehow do seem to be a pretty good indicator."

Economists' standard data sources often have long lag times. For instance, many surveys of consumer sentiment often fail at giving real time, instant understandings of how a population feels about the economy - an important data point for central bankers, who try to judge whether or not they should stimulate their economies based, in part, on forecasts of consumer demand.

Now, with the advent of sophisticated big data analysis and an explosion of social media, there may finally be a way to really understand what consumers - who generally power economies - are thinking, and more importantly, what they are thinking about buying.

"Internet search data can, and already have, played a role in providing information to the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) about the current state of the economy," says Rachana Shanbhogue, an economist with the Bank of England.

Shanbhogue, along with her colleague, Nick McLaren, published a paper arguing for more Internet data to be used in the Bank's analysis of the UK economy.

"The data could become increasingly useful as more and more people involve the Internet in their economic activities and decision making," said Shanbhogue.