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posted by LaminatorX on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:24PM   Printer-friendly
from the applied-shadenfruede dept.

http://news.osu.edu/news/2014/10/02/in-a-bad-mood-head-to-facebook-and-find-someone-worse-off/
Abstract: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563208002355

A study has found that if someone is in a bad mood, they are more likely to look up people on social networking who are worse off than they are.

Researchers found that, in general, people use social media to connect with people who are posting positive and success-oriented updates.

“But when people are in a negative mood, they start to show more interest in the less attractive, less successful people on their social media sites,” said Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, co-author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University.

These findings give more context to recent studies that found people who spend a lot of time on Facebook tend to be more frustrated, angry and lonely – presumably because of all the happy updates from friends that make them feel inadequate.

“People have the ability to manage how they use social media,” said Benjamin Johnson, co-author of the study, recently a doctoral student in communication at Ohio State and now an assistant professor at VU University Amsterdam.

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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:43PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:43PM (#101797)

    Tork, do you constantly try to provoke arguments here at SoylentNews in order to make up for a lack of power or influence in the real world?

    Is that your way of managing your mood?

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Tork on Saturday October 04 2014, @10:43PM

      by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Saturday October 04 2014, @10:43PM (#101814)
      Have you noticed that the subject line in nearly all my comments begins with "Re:"....?
      --
      🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05 2014, @02:57AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05 2014, @02:57AM (#101872)

        Yep, absolutely. This is how it works: Somebody makes a good point. You misinterpret or misrepresent it in some vain attempt to "argue" with the commenter. Then you crow on about "using logic" to "defeat" them. The person you've responsed to rolls their eyes, and wonders what the heck is wrong with you.

        • (Score: 2) by Tork on Sunday October 05 2014, @05:03AM

          by Tork (3914) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 05 2014, @05:03AM (#101909)
          It seems to me that if I were misinterpreting a good point it'd be dizzyingly easy to refute and defeat. If I'm striking a nerve, then you are complicit.
          --
          🏳️‍🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️‍🌈
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:46PM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:46PM (#101799) Homepage

    " people who spend a lot of time on Facebook tend to be more frustrated, angry and lonely – presumably because of all the happy updates from friends that make them feel inadequate. "

    Sure, if you're an idiot. Of course people are going to brag about how rad their lives are. You look at that happy couple and all those fun things they're doing together. What you don't see all of the nagging and petty arguments, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, infidelity, lack of sex life, neuroses, and all those other compromises that "happy" couples make.

    Every parent is obligated to say that parenthood is the best thing that ever happened to them, but in private they tell me things like, "I fucked up having those kids" or "I ruined my life." Those two quotes are verbatim of what people (the former quote from a father and the latter from a mother) have actually told me.

    Maybe those "frustrated, angry, and lonely" people are on Facebook all the damn time because they're frustrated, angry, and lonely.

    Although I admit to being similarly petty -- I enjoy visiting my friends, but that most of them are worse-off than I am makes me feel better about myself.

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:49PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:49PM (#101802)

      You forgot to mention the impotency.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05 2014, @12:41AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05 2014, @12:41AM (#101849)

        The comment I liked about kids (from a woman friend with twin girls), "What was I thinking?"

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05 2014, @01:40AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05 2014, @01:40AM (#101856)

      > "I fucked up having those kids" or "I ruined my life." Those two quotes are verbatim of what people (the former quote from a father and the latter from a mother)

      It's nice you could have such frank discussions with your parents.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 04 2014, @09:46PM (#101800)

    This reminds me of a Pipedot submission I saw recently about some stuff that went on in social media:

    http://pipedot.org/story/2014-10-04/github-staff-jake-boxer-disables-gamergate-operation-disrespectful-nod-repository [pipedot.org]

    The links to the twitters are in the Pipedot summary.

    It's a very interesting case study of this concept of people using social networks to manage their mood.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by ticho on Sunday October 05 2014, @12:00AM

    by ticho (89) on Sunday October 05 2014, @12:00AM (#101838) Homepage Journal

    “People have the ability to manage how they use social media,” said Benjamin Johnson, co-author of the study, recently a doctoral student in communication at Ohio State and now an assistant professor at VU University Amsterdam.

    Wow, this is truly mind-blowing. It is as if people are actually sentient beings who can think about how to use things. I am aghast. Quick, give this man more money for his research!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05 2014, @10:00AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 05 2014, @10:00AM (#101970)

      Actually, this is probably surprising to many.

      There's a whole cabal of people out there who think we're entirely products of our environment, entirely subject to operant conditioning.

      The notion of a human as having an independent will is, in 2014, fairly quaint.

  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Sunday October 05 2014, @12:02PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 05 2014, @12:02PM (#101982)

    tend to be more frustrated, angry and lonely – presumably because of all the happy updates

    Maybe they got cause and effect backwards.

    I don't use the "social" social media sites like FB/G+/whatever unless I'm utterly bored, and being bored correlates with "frustrated, angry and lonely". Its kinda like watching TV, yeah maybe if I'm really sick and can't do anything but lay on the couch, or maybe when I'm too old to do anything anymore, or if I was dumb, but till then, I've got better things to do than watch Laverne and Shirley reruns after Judge Judy.

    But for cultural / advertising reasons we aren't allowed to discuss how some forms of media are "backups" or "last resorts" because that could be insulting to those media themselves (and they are powerful) and folks who for whatever reason are addicted to them.

  • (Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Sunday October 05 2014, @04:21PM

    by PizzaRollPlinkett (4512) on Sunday October 05 2014, @04:21PM (#102069)

    This seems to be too black and white to make sense. What do the "positive and success-oriented" people do when they're in a bad mood? They're the ones posting the "positive and success-oriented updates". So if people connect to "positive and success-oriented" people "in general", then who are the "less attractive, less successful people" posting downer stuff? That means that, in general, people don't really connect to only uppers, or the downers would starve because no one would see them. This also suggests there are uppers, downers, and people who are neither but read updates from uppers and downers. But that would suggest only extreme outliers post to social media, and everyone else just lurks. I'm confused. Couldn't some of the uppers have a bad day and vent by posting a downer message? Or are people's posts a mixture of both upper and downer messages? This is like a Raymond Smullyan logic puzzle.

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