Facebook and Other Social Media Websites Impact User Emotions

The unprecedented rise of social media in recent years has had a huge impact on society. Now, studies have revealed some negative aspects of the websites, such as behavioral and emotional effects on social media users.

It seems as if Facebook data can be used in other ways aside from advertising and marketing purposes. Researchers from the University of California, Yale University, and Facebook compiled data from millions of Facebook users and sought to examine the impact of rainy days.

Their goal was to see if emotions could spread as a result of posts pertaining to positive and negative attitudes. They analyzed posts of Facebook users who were friends with those who were "affected" by the rain and posted about it. The researchers concluded that gloomy weather created an increase of negative posts by 1.16% and a decrease of positive posts by 1.19%.

The results of the "Detecting Emotional Contagion in Massive Social Networks" study were published in the journal PLOS ONE.

This hasn't been the first incidence of contagious behaviors or emotions. Earlier this month, two studies were published that examined both self-esteem and eating disorders in correlation with Facebook use. A Florida State University study examined frequent Facebook being associated with eating disorders. "Do You 'Like' My Photo? Facebook Use Maintains Eating Disorder Risk" was published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders and found that women's usage of Facebook in excess of 20 minutes reinforced their concern about weight and shape, ultimately leading to a higher risk of eating disorders.

It has long been known that direct human-to-human contact played a significant role in spreading the feeling of various emotions, most notably happiness. But this most recent study revealed the surprising effects of emotional contagion via social media platforms. This is particularly alarming because the growing presence of social media can affect a multitude of people, markets, cultures, etc.

"These results imply that emotions themselves might ripple through social networks to generate large-scale synchrony that gives rise to clusters of happy and unhappy individuals," the authors wrote, presented in this BBC News article. "As a result, we may see greater spikes in global emotion that could generate increased volatility in everything from political systems to financial markets."