Do negative posts lead to negative attitudes? Facebook experiment manipulates 700,000 user news feeds

MILWAUKEE (WITI) -- Do you find reading all of your friends' negative Facebook posts leads you to adopt a negative attitude? You're not alone.

Facebook conducted an experinment among nearly 700,000 users to gauge how posts on the site affect people's moods.

According to the Daily Mail, Facebook manipulated the news feeds of users to highlight either positive or negative posts -- according to the results of a study published this week in PNAS Journal.

The experiment tested whether exposure to emotions led people to change their own posting behaviors.

Researchers found that negative posts are met with encouragement, but a reduction in happy posts was met with a surprising amount of negativity.

Researchers say the results indicate emotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our own emotions.

Facebook has 1.28 billion active users around the world.

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