Call it cathartic but one modern way people in a bad mood feel better is to go on social media like Facebook and find friends doing even worse.
A new paper says that generally people use social media to connect with people who are posting positive and success-oriented updates. No one wants to hang out with downers - unless they are in a bad mood. Then people want to read about less attractive, less successful and more miserable people. The authors believe the
findings give more context to recent papers stating 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 co-author Benjamin Johnson, assistant professor at VU University Amsterdam. "Generally, most of us look for the positive on social media sites. But if you're feeling vulnerable, you'll look for people on Facebook who are having a bad day or who aren't as good at presenting themselves positively, just to make yourself feel better."
The study involved 168 college students. Researchers first put participants in a good or bad mood by having them take a test on facial emotion recognition. Regardless of their answers, the students were randomly told their performance was "terrible" (to put them in a bad mood) or "excellent" (to put them in a good mood).
Afterward, all participants were asked to review what they were told was a new social networking site called SocialLink. The overview page presented preview profiles of eight individuals, which the students could click on to read more.
The key to the study was that the eight profiles were designed to make the people profiled appear attractive and successful – or unattractive or unsuccessful.
Each profiled person was ranked on a scale of 0 to 5 on both career success (number of dollar signs next to their profile) and attractiveness, or "hotness" (number of hearts).
Each profile had either half of a dollar sign (low career success) or 4 1/2 dollar signs (high career success). They had either one-half heart (low attractiveness) or 4 1/2 hearts (high attractiveness).
The profile images were blurred so that participants could not see what they actually looked like.
When participants clicked on the profiles, they found that all the status updates were much the same. They were all relatively mundane and didn't discuss any career or academic success, physical appearance or romantic relationships.
"So the only real difference between the profiles was the ratings of career success and attractiveness signified by the dollar signs and hearts," Johnson said.
Overall, the researchers found that people tended to spend more time on the profiles of people who were rated as successful and attractive.
But participants who had been put in a negative mood spent significantly more time than others browsing the profiles of people who had been rated as unsuccessful and unattractive.
"If you need a self-esteem boost, you're going to look at people worse off than you," said Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, co-author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University. "You're probably not going to be looking at the people who just got a great new job or just got married. "One of the great appeals of social network sites is that they allow people to manage their moods by choosing who they want to compare themselves to."
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