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Social Media May Be Affecting Your Mood

Angela Shen |
March 19, 2014 | 3:42 p.m. PDT

Staff Reporter

A new study has found that social networking sites such as Facebook may cause emotional "spillover" effects that influence people's moods. Researchers analyzed over a billion Facebook statuses and found that positive posts instigated an average of 1.75 more positive posts from friends, while negative posts provoked 1.29 more negative ones.

Because of the accessibility of various social networks, emotional posts can impact people no matter where they are. James Fowler, the author of the study, says that "emotions

Courtesy of Creative Commons.
Courtesy of Creative Commons.
themselves might ripple through social networks to generate large-scale synchrony that gives rise to clusters of happy and unhappy individuals. As a result, we may see greater spikes in global emotion that could generate increased volatility in everything from political systems to financial markets."

Fowler and his colleagues have also looked into whether rainy days affect the content of Facebook posts. They found that rain increased the number of negative posts by 1.16%, which reduced the number of positive posts by 1.19%. Besides affecting moods, other studies have found that weather also affects physical and mental health, crime and suicide rates, as well as death rates.

Other researchers have analyzed how social networking sites influence different aspects of life. Dr. Nicholas Christakis of Yale University has written numerous papers specifying a link between obesity and "social ties."

But these studies have been met with some criticism. Some scholars are still skeptical, but most would agree that further research on social contagion is necessary before validating these connections with absolute certainty.

Reach Staff Reporter Angela Shen here.



 

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