Three scientists working for Facebook deliberately manipulated the emotional content of Facebook users newfeeds to make them more negative or positive. They found that users shown more negative posts then posted more negative material, and same with positive posts. The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Here is the abstract: We show, via a massive (N = 689,003) experiment on Facebook, that emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness. We provide experimental evidence that emotional contagion occurs without direct interaction between people (exposure to a friend expressing an emotion is sufficient), and in the complete absence of nonverbal cues. Heres my opinion: Adam D. I. Kramera, Jamie E. Guillory, and Jeffrey T. Hancock, what you did may be legal, because we evidently all signed up as research subjects (lab rats) when we joined Facebook. But it is unethical. There are people on Facebook who have mental health issues they are dealing with or are vulnerable in a variety of ways. Deliberately showing people more negative material, without knowing their vulnerabilities or what harm it might cause, is disgusting. You may be within the law, you may be scientists who have now published in a prestigious journal, but you sicken me. The only good thing about your research is that it exposes the ways in which we are being manipulated. I hope this information goes viral.
Posted on: Sat, 28 Jun 2014 08:28:36 +0000
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