WATCH IT!- EVEN THE EMOTIONS CAN GO VIRAL
Have you ever felt thirsty when you see someone drinking water or ever felt like yawning when others yawn; or even laugh when others start laughing
The phenomenon is known as Emotional contagion, a type of interpersonal influence where one person’s emotions and related behaviours directly trigger similar emotions and behaviours in other people.
Carrier of Emotional Contagion- Social Media
There are various mechanisms through which the Emotional Contagion occurs. One of the biggest carriers of this contagion today is Social Media.
An experiment conducted with 6,89,003 Facebook users was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Journal, it was found that reducing the positive expressions in the News Feed resulted in people producing fewer positive posts and more negative posts; when negative expressions are reduced, the opposite pattern occurred.
Another study published in the Social Psychological and Personality Science journal found that YouTube videos effect the emotional state of the viewers and cause emotional contagion just as they do in physical environments. So, depending upon what type of videos you are consuming; your mood can swing accordingly.
Given the fact that there are about 5 billion videos being viewed daily on YouTube, 2.27 billion monthly active users on Facebook & 500 million tweets shared per day- Oh boy! Even emotions can go viral.
Adverse effects of Emotional Contagion
It doesn’t effect just one person, everyone who is consuming such content through Social media can show similar emotional response. It has a ripple effect, Emotions spread among people like Viruses. And believe it or not negative emotions are more powerful as a contagion than the positive ones.
In May 2018, a video about gang of child kidnappers went viral on Whatsapp/facebook and worried many parents. The anger that followed resulted in over 20 people getting lynched by angry mob in different parts of India like Maharashtra, MP, Tripura, Gujarat, West Bengal etc. (including a man hired by the authorities to help dispel the rumours).
In 2016, the social media also came under scanner following the U.S. presidential elections for being used by various political groups/individuals to influence voters. Fake accounts & pages were created to spread misinformation and attack the candidates. Not only humans, the bots were used to exaggerate few conversations, amplify debates and tweet about the elections. All this to channel emotions in favour or against the presidential candidates.
Emotions have deep connections with our decision making, remember the famous advice that everyone give almost everyone “Just do what feels right! Or Listen to your heart or gut feelings!”. That’s putting emotions on the driver’s seat of decision making. And what if your emotions are infected or influenced?
What are my chances of being infected with it? What are the Signs & Symptoms?
Today we are not just present on Social Media, we are involved in it. In pre-social media era people used to be excited to share things with other people in their family & social circle but these days we are just excited to share it on social media and keep a track on views & likes. We are under peer pressure through social media to visit places, watch movies, buy something and even to show how happy and exciting our lives are – that’s involvement.
So, you stand a good chance of being infected with the Emotional Contagion being spread through Social Media. It effects everyone you, me and other’s in society.
As an Individual, it affects your choice of everything from buying a deodorant to buying a house, from choosing a dress to choosing a leader of the country. It’s your Fundamental Right to Make Own Choices, but are you?
As a Parent or a Family, it affects the upbringing of your kids. You are careful about who they hang out with while they are out of house, but wouldn’t you also want to know who they hang out with on social media. Gone are the days when Smart phone & Social Media use were considered harmless. Today everything is available at a finger’s click from Porn to suicidal videos. What social media culture are your kids growing in?
As a Consumer, it affects your spending behaviour like what things to buy? Which brands to choose? Where to buy these things from? Have you ever wondered why you end-up buying things you don’t need or end up spending more than your budget? Think about it, what baited you?
As a Marketer, it affects your brand’s image in the market. That’s why companies spend huge on influencer endorsements so that a positive emotion can be associated with the brands. It affects the brand loyalty & equity. What do you think is a big loss to Nestle- Loss of sales of Maggi noodles or Loss of Consumer Loyalty?
As a Leader, it affects the culture & performance of your team. Today each team has their own Whatsapp group & Facebook communities etc. One negative share in the morning can direct the fate of many interactions during the day and drain out positive energy. Managing emotions not only at workplace but also in social media groups is critical.
The Remedy: Digital-Vaccination
Being a responsible citizen you will never throw garbage in the open, same treatment should be given to digital-garbage. Don’t throw digital-garbage on your social media account, the right place for all garbage is a bin- a dust bin and a recycle bin.
Here are few suggestions that can help you to prevent yourself, your team, family or friends from spreading or getting affected with the emotional contagion:
- Don’t follow or add suspicious people & pages. Ignore the spam messages, mails & videos.
- Set Social Media rules just like house rules, you make for your kids to follow. Similarly, leaders should set it for their teams.
- Set right examples of Social Media Behaviour & Social Media Culture for your team, kids, friends & family.
- Be-aware of what is being shared on your timeline, account, pages etc. And Keep a check on what is being shared on the groups, threads, communities etc. where you are an administrator. Ask members to refrain from sharing sensitive posts or delete it yourself.
- Marketer should use Social Media Listening not just to gather insights but also keep a track on the Social Media Sentiments of consumers. You can identify the tone of conversation- happy, satisfied, angry or annoyed and take appropriate steps to manage the sentiments related to your brand.
- Don’t believe in news from unauthentic sources and don’t share fake news posts. Before acting on any News, whet it out. Don’t fall prey to View, Like & Share Bait.
- You can also block spammers; different social media platforms provide its users with options to do it. Even if you are seeing paid ads on your page you can block them, if you don’t like them.
- Platforms like Google, Instagram & YouTube, will show you content like suggested pages, news, posts or videos based upon your search history, so be conscious about your searches, keep searching for things that make you positive. These platforms also have options for you to ignore or stop seeing similar content.
- And Don’t make the mistake of believing that whatever is happening on Social Media is real. There are professionals for hire, who can be assigned specific tasks like trolling someone on social media or damaging the reputation of someone etc. These professionals maintain huge number of fake online accounts, that are used to spread rumours, cook fake news, increase followers/likes & views, commenting on posts or glorifying/trolling someone online. So be-aware & beware of being a party to the game of these emotional vampires.
References
Feeling moody? Blame YouTube videos for that, ANI, DEC-28-2018
Sigal Barsade Ph.D., Faster than a Speeding Text: “Emotional Contagion” At Work, Psychology today
Experimental evidence of massive-scale emotional contagion through social networks, Adam D. I. Kramer, Jamie E. Guillory, and Jeffrey T. Hancock, PNAS June 17, 2014 111 (24) 8788-8790; published ahead of print June 2, 2014 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1320040111
Tweet statistics: http://www.internetlivestats.com/twitter-statistics/,
Facebook user stats: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264810/number-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide/
YouTube user statistics: http://www.businessofapps.com/data/youtube-statistics/
Parents panic as child-lifters video goes viral; 5 beaten up, published in Times of India, MAY-15-2018
Bots, trolls and fake news: Social media is a minefield for U.S. midterms, By Steven D’Souza · CBC News · Posted: Oct 21, 2018 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: October 21, 2018 https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/national-us-midterm-elections-bots-trolls-fake-news-1.4863258
Blog Cover Image: FreePik.com
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