TY - JOUR
T1 - Detecting emotional contagion in massive social networks
AU - Coviello, Lorenzo
AU - Sohn, Yunkyu
AU - Kramer, Adam D.I.
AU - Marlow, Cameron
AU - Franceschetti, Massimo
AU - Christakis, Nicholas A.
AU - Fowler, James H.
PY - 2014/3/12
Y1 - 2014/3/12
N2 - Happiness and other emotions spread between people in direct contact, but it is unclear whether massive online social networks also contribute to this spread. Here, we elaborate a novel method for measuring the contagion of emotional expression. With data from millions of Facebook users, we show that rainfall directly influences the emotional content of their status messages, and it also affects the status messages of friends in other cities who are not experiencing rainfall. For every one person affected directly, rainfall alters the emotional expression of about one to two other people, suggesting that online social networks may magnify the intensity of global emotional synchrony.
AB - Happiness and other emotions spread between people in direct contact, but it is unclear whether massive online social networks also contribute to this spread. Here, we elaborate a novel method for measuring the contagion of emotional expression. With data from millions of Facebook users, we show that rainfall directly influences the emotional content of their status messages, and it also affects the status messages of friends in other cities who are not experiencing rainfall. For every one person affected directly, rainfall alters the emotional expression of about one to two other people, suggesting that online social networks may magnify the intensity of global emotional synchrony.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84898013839&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84898013839&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0090315
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0090315
M3 - Article
C2 - 24621792
AN - SCOPUS:84898013839
VL - 9
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 3
M1 - e90315
ER -