As always, assignment 6 started out by filling out the Unit review sheet. After this, I had to finish mastering my presentation medium, take a screenshot that demonstrates this, and continue my work on the term project. Finally, I had to create a document describing the work I have done so far on the term project, and upload this with my review sheet to the assignment link.
As always, the review sheet is cumulative, so I had to start out by filling out the unit 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 page before I could work on this unit’s page. Once I got to the current unit, it first asked to explain what emotional contagion is and how emotional contagion might spread through the Internet.
I explained that emotional contagion essentially is the spreading of similar emotions from one person to another. This can happen with positive or negative emotions, and in a pair or in a crowd.
I talked about how the Kramer study manipulated people’s Facebook feeds to make them slightly more positive or negative and then measured the number of positive posts and negative posts that people produced for a certain period of time afterward. They found that when timelines included less positive posts, people produced less positive posts. Similarly, when timelines included less negative posts, people produced less negative posts. This essentially is backing up the claim that emotional contagion can be present online too, not just in-person.
I said that this study exemplifies that when people see positive things on the internet, they will experience more positive feelings, and when they see more negative things, they will experience more negative feelings. This is how emotional contagion spreads through the internet. Based on the content people are exposed to, it can change how they feel.
After this, it asked to identify four reasons why there are so many photos, gifs, and videos of cats on the Internet and why Internet-users get so much emotional pleasure from watching and sharing photos, gifs, and videos of cats.
My first reason was that cats are weird, and society has been obsessed recently with things that are out of the ordinary. So, it only makes sense that people are currently so obsessed with cats when it comes to the internet. My second reason was that cats are easy to personify. They can express many emotions, and they enjoy adventures. So, they can be fun to observe, take pictures of, or post on the internet about.
My third reason was that cats are cute. They can make facial expressions that warm your heart. They can be therapeutic to look at. This is a simple explanation of why cats are so prevalent in the online world. My fourth reason was that cats are jerks. They can ignore us, demand things from us, and vomit in our houses. Sharing a bunch of material about them can be one form of getting revenge on the cat species.
Moving on to the term project document, I started out by discussing my project an my medium again. For those who have forgotten, I am doing a daily blog in which I itemize the content I learn along with my detailed reflections. Following this, I talked about how I have put a ton of work into the project, more than the recommended time. I discussed that I was a little bit behind the current unit, but that this was not a bad thing, because it ensures that I will always have at least one assignment to make a blog post about.
Reflecting on this assignment, once again, it was the standard way to end a unit. As always, filling out the cumulative review sheet is valuable, as it gives me continued exposure to the material we have learned thus far in the course. Repeated exposure leads to better mastery, through distributed learning.
The term project document was also very standard. It is always good to reflect on all the hard work I have done on the project, and it gives me some pride in my work ethic. It also motivates me to keep working hard, and to catch up to the current day in blogs sooner than later.
There was one different aspect to this assignment, which was the screenshot we had to take. I think this was a good idea, and forced us to show professor Gernsbacher that we are on the right track for our projects! She cares about all of her students’ success, and this was an example of this care in action.
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