(CNN Philippines) — We use them to share breath-taking photos, political and personal rants, or even a simple status of where we are and what we have been doing.
Are you aware that there is an emotional influence behind your social media updates?
What you share and post on any social networking sites matter: The news you dispatch on Twitter, that enviable experience you share on Facebook, the outlandish photo you post on Instagram, and the graphic video you upload on YouTube.
Browsing and surfing these sites can make you feel connected to a huge community, but such an easy, casual connection in a digital environment could also have its downside.
Your updates can either lead to unexpected happiness or unwanted depression among your readers.
A recent study published in March 2014 showed that emotions could be spread via social networking sites.
The study showed that while positive posts on Facebook tend to generate other positive posts, negative posts tend to generate negative ones. The bright side of the study is: Positive posts are more “contagious” than the negative ones.
Positivity in social media generates unequivocal interaction. It shows that positive experience constitutes positive experience for people.
According to James Fowler, a professor at the University of California, San Diego: “For each happy message that you write, our study suggests that your friends who live in other cities will be influenced by that to write an additional one or two posts themselves.”
However, when someone shares bad news, failures or difficulties, it tends to attract anger and unwanted depression.
These emotions — positive or negative — could be transferred from person to person via updates posted on social networks.
This may not be accurate but try reading or looking at your friends’ Facebook news feeds and you will discover that positive and negative emotions fluctuate, depending on what was being shared and expressed. When a friend shares something positive, he gets positive reactions and vice-versa.
Researchers have a term for this: emotional contagion. It is an emotional state that could be spread from person to person without their awareness.
Take the case of Mar Cheri Durante Galvez.
On March 2014, Galvez uploaded a photo of an unidentified traffic enforcer of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority, sharing food and water to a street child begging for alms along Tandang Sora in Quezon City to the Facebook page of Top Gear Philippines.
The photo immediately went viral and has generated 38,155 positive interactions: 32,777 likes, 1,260 comments and 4,118 shares.
The enforcer was later identified as Reynaldo Romano.
In an interview with CNN Philippines, Romano said that he is grateful that there are people who are always willing to help. He adds that he expects nothing in return for his good deeds.
So, next time you feel like sharing your digital rant, success or frustrations, or even feeling of discontent on your social media accounts, think about its impact. It may seem harmless but the effect it causes to your readers could influence their moods and emotions.
