Dec
4
In a separate study of 1,700 Facebook profiles . . .
December 4, 2008 | 3 Comments
This New York Times article describes a study of the so-called contagious nature of happiness. Included:
In a separate study of 1,700 Facebook profiles, they found that people smiling in their photographs had more Facebook friends and more of those friends were smiling. “That shows that some of our findings are generalizable to the online world,” Dr. Christakis said.
Oh, for god’s sake. Seriously? And this is being reported by the Times? My Facebook profile shows me lighting a cigarette. I bet this means my friends smoke more and their friends smoke more too! Science is easy!
Comments
3 Comments so far
seriously 1,700? you could do this study easily in the beloit network, which is surely representative of *we hope* not very much.
[...] a somewhat-related note, here’s Caroline on a dumber-but-sexier-thanks-to-social-networks version of the study conducted on [...]
Found you.
Off the top of my head, the only profile picture i remember that features me smiling also feature me dead drunk in a shopping cart, waving a Red Stripe.
While we’re on the subject, you might be interested: A proposal to classify happiness as a psychiatric disorder.