Emotions expressed on Facebook are contagious

Emotions expressed on Facebook can be contagious, according to researchers at the University of California. Researchers studied the messages of more than 100 million users, and found that "emotional changes in one person caused emotional changes in another person."

The data, which was first published in the Wall Street Journal, showed that the number of negative posts increased 1.16 percent when it was raining, and positive comments dropped 1.19 percent. And when friends living in other cities where it wasn't raining read a gloomy message, their moods also darkened.

Since more than a billion people use Facebook, it's easy to see how an upbeat or downbeat mood in one place can quickly spread on the social network. "It is going to have implications for financial markets, which have bubbles and busts, and it has implications for political activity," Fowler said.

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Read more at the Wall Street Journal.