(PCM) I somehow feel so used! It seems that Facebook has been taking part in a little social experiment that began back in 2012.
The company allegedly subjected nearly 700,000 users to unknowingly have their feeds altered to study and gauge the effects on emotions.
Facebook created the social experiment to see if the content that appears in a person’s news feed would have the ability to influence their overall mood.
It has long been established that if an individual surrounds themselves with happy people than they will in turn also be happier and vice versa, when surrounding yourself with negativity an individual is more likely to have a negative demeanor as well.
Facebook used a special algorithm to control the amount of positive and negative posts in their subjects’ news feeds. The experiment ended up proving that in-person interaction is not a necessity to alter an individuals moods and emotions.
The results of the study were published earlier this month and the amount of negative backlash towards Facebook has been overwhelming. Bet they don’t want to test those emotions now!
Facebook defends the study saying that it falls under the protection of Facebook’s Data Usage Policy and no one’s privacy rights were violated. Still kind of makes you wonder what else they could be secretly studying…right?
The post Facebook Uses A Social Experiment To Manipulate Users’ Emotions also appeared on PCM Lifestyle.