Peppy videos online can lift your spirits, new study finds
| Jan 3, 2019, 11:19 IST
New research has found peppy videos on Youtube can lift your spirits after a rough or long day at work.
Researchers say people tend to mirror their emotions based on what they see online. 2,000 video vlogs on Youtube were examined for the study.
Vloggers were chosen for the study because they share experiences and emotions.
The team examined the vloggers' words and emotions and then analysed the comments to measure if the audience experienced emotional contagion or homophily.
The team found there is an immediate effect that leads to YouTuber emotion correlating with audience emotion.
"Our social life might move more and more to the online sphere, but our emotions and the way we behave towards one another will always be steered by basic psychological processes," said lead author of the study Hannes Rosenbusch from Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
The study makes it clear that people have the power to influence us even on a digital platform. "Our research is a reminder that the people we encounter online influence our everyday emotions — being exposed to happy (or angry) people can make us more happy (or angry) ourselves," Rosenbusch said.
Previous research has found similar results looking at other social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.
Researchers say people tend to mirror their emotions based on what they see online. 2,000 video vlogs on Youtube were examined for the study.
Vloggers were chosen for the study because they share experiences and emotions.
The team examined the vloggers' words and emotions and then analysed the comments to measure if the audience experienced emotional contagion or homophily.
The team found there is an immediate effect that leads to YouTuber emotion correlating with audience emotion.
"Our social life might move more and more to the online sphere, but our emotions and the way we behave towards one another will always be steered by basic psychological processes," said lead author of the study Hannes Rosenbusch from Tilburg University in the Netherlands.
The study makes it clear that people have the power to influence us even on a digital platform. "Our research is a reminder that the people we encounter online influence our everyday emotions — being exposed to happy (or angry) people can make us more happy (or angry) ourselves," Rosenbusch said.
Previous research has found similar results looking at other social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.