Facebook emotions can be viral but are not very contagious, article from The Conversation

It seems that the nature of what we read on Facebook -positive or negative – can affect our own emotional state. The article by Luke van Ryn and Robbie Fordyce cites recent research from Cornell University that examined data from over 690,000 users – big data at work. And although the results aren’t particularly convincing, our experience in the Grateful Project group has been that positive posts can affect our own emotions. In fact, we’ve even considered designing our own set of emoticons for when words fail to capture just how someone else’s shared gratitude can make us feel.