Emotional contagion in social networks: the case of COVID-19 on Facebook

Abstract

The containment strategy, in the face of the contingency of COVID-19, increased the use of technology to continue daily activities. However, the consumption of information in social networks could affect people’s emotions. The objective of this research was to explore the emotional contagion on Facebook in the face of a contingency. Whit an essentially qualitative approach, 701 publications related to the topic of COVID-19 and 1872 comments generated from those publications were analyzed. It was found that: A) in order to inform and entertain, people prefer to communicate through images on weekdays; B) emotional contagion occurs on Facebook, but not in the same proportion in all participants. This highlights the importance of being aware that the information we share can impact the emotions of others.

Keywords:
Emotional contagion; Social network; COVID-19; Facebook