Digital Emotion Contagion

Abstract

People spend considerable time on digital media, and are thus often exposed to expressions of emotion by other people. This exposure can lead their own emotion expressions becoming more similar to those of others, a process we refer to as 'digital emotion contagion'. This article reviews the growing literature on digital emotion contagion. After defining emotion contagion, we suggest that one unique feature of digital emotion contagion is that it is mediated by digital media platforms that are motivated to upregulate user emotions. We then turn to measurement, and consider the challenges of demonstrating that digital emotion contagion has occurred, and how these challenges have been addressed. Finally, we call for a greater focus on understanding when emotion contagion effects are likely to be strong versus weak or nonexistent.

Keywords: digital media; emotion; emotion contagion; social media.