[kick]

The value of the paper is that it's where Facebook first started getting creative: a massive (N=689,00!), barely-consented-to (successful) attempt to sway the emotional states of hundreds of thousands of people.

That's both groundbreaking and constructive, if constructive in a way that harms people who don't have Facebook stock.

It set the stage for so much of what's happening today. Acting like it's just another boring paper is baffling.

[knzhou]

> barely-consented-to (successful) attempt to sway the emotional states of hundreds of thousands of people

If you read the newspaper, watch TV, or read articles online, I have some bad news for you.

[groby_b]

You miss a crucial part - none of this are individually tailored to you. Social media is the first form of media that can deliver an individually customized payload.

[inimino]

Are you saying the paper itself is interesting, or that what the paper says about Facebook is interesting?

The actual result (people who see positive or negative messages are more likely to post the same) seems so obvious and uninteresting as not to be worth mentioning at all, though the fact that Facebook was willing to run the experiment and publish the result is perhaps more notable.

[disgruntledphd2]

The context at the time was that some authors were making the argument that seeing positive posts on FB increased negative affect.

This study, which was much larger, showed that this was not the case.

[inimino]

Oh my. That would indeed be interesting, if only the method could even have a hope to show such a thing.

From the abstract:

> When positive expressions were reduced, people produced fewer positive posts and more negative posts; when negative expressions were reduced, the opposite pattern occurred.

Well and good, when people see more positive posts, they post more positively. But then:

> This work also suggests that, [...] the observation of others’ positive experiences constitutes a positive experience for people.

What a leap into the dark that is!

This study cannot show anything about affect, only about what was measured, which is what people posted on Facebook.

[disgruntledphd2]

Entirely agreed. But the previous study was a self-reported observational analysis, with appproximately 300 (German) participants.

I'm not defending the study in general, but the context of the research is somewhat important.

[omginternets]

The subject is interesting, but there's barely any effect. Look at the d scores!

>a massive (N=689,00!)

Your critique reads like someone whose never done any research or serious statistical work. Big N's don't automatically mean the results are robust.

I'm sorry, this isn't the groundbreaking paper you want it to be.

[kick]

Condescending remark aside, it's not important because of the effect or lack thereof; it's important because of how it was done.

[omginternets]

Please consider that this stuff is very nuanced, and that while you clearly care about these issues a lot (as do I!), your analysis betrays a lack of understanding.

Any way you want to cut it, these results are not to be trusted. You cannot even be sure the conclusions are true. The effect sizes are within measurement error.

[anigbrowl]

You can gmail me if you want a more receptive ear for your thoughts on this paper and related subject matter.