Inside the Facebook Emotion Study

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Inside the Facebook Emotion Study Jeff Hancock

Transcript of Inside the Facebook Emotion Study

Page 1: Inside the Facebook Emotion Study

Inside  the  Facebook  Emotion  Study  

 Jeff  Hancock

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Why did you do this study?

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Role Affect Manipulation Test IM chat Affect

Maintenance Test

Experiencer

t i p s f o r sur v i v i ng f re shman year

Partner 1

Partner 2

PAN

AS

Cir

cum

plex

Affe

ct S

cale

gyran ! angry amicel ! malice

lbnda ! bland lianalv! vanilla

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Role Affect Manipulation Test IM chat Affect

Maintenance Test

Partner 1

t i p s f o r sur v i v i ng f re shman year

Partner 2

Partner 3

PAN

AS

Cir

cum

plex

Affe

ct S

cale

lbnda ! bland lianalv! vanilla

lbnda ! bland lianalv! vanilla

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Emotional Contagion N

egat

ive

Affe

ct S

core

(1-

5)

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

Experiencer Partners Control

Mediated Emotional Contagion

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Why did Facebook do this study?

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f

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N=689,003

% Negative Posts Omitted

% Positive Posts Omitted

% Random Posts Omitted

% Random Posts Omitted

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N=689,003

Less NegativeMore Positive

Less PositiveMore Negative

% Negative Posts Omitted

% Positive Posts Omitted

% Random Posts Omitted

% Random Posts Omitted

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~1.8m words

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~4m words~1.8m words

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What was the impact?

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What was the impact?

% Negative Posts Omitted

% Positive Posts Omitted

% Random Posts Omitted

% Random Posts Omitted

wrote 1 fewer positive emotion word per 1000

wrote 4 more negative emotion words per 10,000

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How could you know, a priori, tiny effect?

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How could you know, a priori, small impact?

Emotional Contagion - Lab Results

Mea

n Te

nsio

n R

atin

g

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

Experiencer Partners Control

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Did you get IRB approval?

What about informed consent?

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Did you get IRB approval?

Why did this study cause so much controversy?

Why no informed consent?

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Reaction from Users

“My friend’s dad just passed away, and if I was in this experiment I’d never have known”

2. The Newsfeed is important

“How dare you manipulate my Newsfeed!”

1. The Newsfeed is manipulated?

3. Emotions are distinctly important

4. Big data is personal

“I want to know if I was in your experiment”

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Megan French Sarah Sinclair Chris Traver Garrett Heller

Michael Luzmore Peter Shelton Dave Fol Ruth Weismann

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Reaction from the Media

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Reaction from the Media

0

15

30

45

60

tinker guinea pig manipulate/control

"unwitting guinea pigs"

"treating people like laboratory rats

"tweaking the newsfeed algorithm”

“tinkering with people's emotions”

manipulated users' emotions

manipulated to study their emotional reactions

% articles

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Reaction from the Media

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Reaction from the Media

0

0.275

0.55

0.825

1.1

1st Person Anger Anx

**

FB coverage

emotionnon-emotion

% word count

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Reaction from the Academy

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Reaction from the Academy

citations = 123

52.9% focus primarily on ethics

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Reaction from the Academy

0

0.15

0.3

0.45

0.6

1st Person Anger Anx

* Abstract Focus

ethicsscience

% word count

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- expectation violation- awareness, informed- personal

Why did this study cause so much controversy?

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Which metaphor best captures your understanding of how the Facebook Newsfeed selects your content?

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Jamie Guillory Adam Kramer danah boyd Jeremy Birnholtz Nicole Ellison

Tarleton Gillespie Mary Gray James Grimmelman Brian Keegan

Jon Kleinberg Cliff Lampe Cristian Sandvig Duncan Watts

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Key Challenges Going Forward

informed consentresearch vs. practiceregulatory fitconsidering the individual vs. societyoutreach and training

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Conversation as metaphor

peer reviewadvisory rather than adversarialin the public domain

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Gift of Criticism

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Gift of Criticism

attend to claimsdrives innovationreflect on our values

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Inside  the  Facebook  Emotion  Study  

 Jeff  Hancock