Social media may seem to regurgitate news of death and destruction much faster than that which represents hope and happiness. Understanding the impact of online content consumption on human mood, a new study has found a sure-shot way to feel uplifted and hopeful in an increasingly isolating world.
Spending just three to five minutes scouring for videos on the internet that inspire can help us feel more positive and reprogramme our minds.
The study, undertaken by researchers at UC Santa Barbara, included about a thousand adults from across the US, aged 18 to 86. While one group watched an inspiring video about three to five minutes in length, every day for five days, others watched comedy, and yet another group did a few minutes of meditation. A control group didn’t watch any media.
The participants completed surveys at the beginning and end of the study to assess changes in feelings of hope and stress.
Interestingly, while comedy didn’t do much for the people’s moods, watching an “underdog” overcome adversity ranked highest in upping the feel-good factor.
“We found that people felt more hopeful after watching the inspiring videos,” says study author Robin Nabi, adding, “And that hope predicted lower stress over the next ten days.”
The group that watched inspiring videos and the meditation significantly felt increased hope.
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“We were actually quite surprised at how similar the effects of the inspiring videos were to the group that meditated,” Nabi says. “Both groups felt more hope,” she explains.
The research has been published in Psychology of Popular Media, a publication of the American Psychological Association.
While the results are not dramatic – these were just ‘happy’ videos after all – Nabi says these “small effects can accrue over time”. As complicated as moods and emotions can be, the impact of long-term hopefulness can’t be underestimated, she adds.
Judith Moskowitz of Northwestern University, who studies the impact of positive emotions, says the finding doesn’t surprise her at all.
“It’s great to have the science tell us what we sort of know intuitively — that if we look at positive content, we’re going to feel more positive and more hope,” she says.
It is akin to repeating positive affirmation to your mirror image each morning, says a US-based life coach. The catch is only to implement the findings in our everyday life and proactively choosing the positive.
Social media algorithms can nudge us towards the negative because highly arousing or thrilling content tends to capture our attention and keep us on the apps, even when it’s negative, explains media researcher Allison Eden of Michigan State University.
Even more curiously, Eden’s own study found that people tend to seek out scary or sad content when they're in bad moods, rather than something that will bring joy or calm.
“In fact, that preference got stronger when their mood worsened,” Eden says.
Her strategies to “counterprogramme” your social feed includes the following steps:
1. Consciously look for positive videos early morning:
"Make an effort that the first couple of things that you search for every day are things that are going to put you in a positive frame," Eden says. This includes finding hashtags that match your interests, watching puppies, animal rescues, positive body image videos, or musical interests.
2. Write a ‘media’ journal:
Pen your thought after watching a particular video that had an impact on you. Tracking your feelings in tandem with the content you consume will help you connect the dots between your media use and your moods.
3. Wipe your feed:
Seeing too much anxiety-causing content can be countered by starting over by deleting your account, taking a social media detox, and then opening a new account. This re-set is an opportunity to check in with whether your feed is working for you — or against you, and reset your online presence. You can also opt for a weekly break, such as a 24-hour pause from social media, to get distance.
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