Facebook conducted a massive psychological experiment on 689,003 users, manipulating their news feeds to assess the effects on their emotions.** *The details of the experiment were published in an article entitled “Experimental Evidence Of Massive-Scale Emotional Contagion Through Social Networks” published in the journal*Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
The short version is, Facebook has the ability to make you feel good or bad, just by tweaking what shows up in your news feed.
The experiment*tested whether emotional contagion occurs between individuals on Facebook, a question the authors (a Facebook scientist and two academics) tested by using an automated system to reduce the amount of emotional content in Facebook news feeds. *The authors found that when they manipulated user timelines to reduce positive expressions displayed by others “people produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts; when negative expressions were reduced, the opposite pattern occurred.”
The results suggest that “emotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our own emotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-scale contagion via social networks.” *For a long time research on emotional contagion was premised on the need for in-person and nonverbal cues, this experiment suggests “in-person interaction and nonverbal cues are not strictly necessary for emotional contagion, and that the observation of others’ positive experiences constitutes a positive experience for people.”
he study has troubling implications for Facebook’s ability to manipulate the user experience for a variety of ends* suggesting that what a user agrees to in the Data Use Policy is critically important. *The authors were able to conduct the research because in their words, automated testing “was consistent with Facebook’s Data Use Policy, to which all users agree prior to creating an account on Facebook, constituting informed consent for this research.”
What harm might flow from manipulating user timelines to create emotions? *Well, consider the controversial study*published last year*(not by Facebook researchers) that said companies should tailor their marketing to women based on how they felt about their appearance. *That marketing study began by examining the days and times when women felt the worst about themselves, finding that women felt most vulnerable on Mondays and felt the best about themselves on Thursdays.
The marketing study suggested companies should “[c]oncentrate *media during prime vulnerability moments, aligning with content involving tips and tricks, instant beauty rescues, dressing for the success, getting organized for the week and empowering stories…*Concentrate media during her most beautiful moments, aligning with content involving weekend guides, weekend style, beauty tips for social activities and positive stories.” *The Facebook study, combined with last year’s marketing study suggests that marketers may not need to wait until Mondays or Thursdays to have an emotional impact, instead**social media companies may be able to manipulate timelines and news feeds to create emotionally fueled marketing opportunities.
How did Facebook manipulate news feeds to create emotional contagion? *They relied on an automated system that identified positive or negative words based on an electronic dictionary. *They then*reduced the positive content in some users news feeds, finding that when the positive content was reduced, a larger percentage of words in people’s status updates were negative and a smaller percentage were positive. When negativity was reduced, the opposite pattern occurred.
The authors found, “[t]hese results suggest that the emotions expressed by friends, via online social networks, influence our own moods, constituting, to our knowledge, the first experimental evidence for massive-scale emotional contagion via social networks and providing support for previously contested claims that emotions spread via contagion through a network.”
The full Facebook study can be found*here.
