I’m old enough to remember when Apple products did…
June 19, 2014Which Content Is Being Shared More On Which Networks
July 12, 2014Did you miss on on Facebook’s controversial 2012 mood experiment that altered the makeup of your news feed, hoping to make you really, really sad? Of course you did – as far as you know. You’re never going to know whether you were one of the 700,000 users randomly selected as Facebook’s guinea pigs, but since that’s less than one percent of the total Facebook user base, it’s likely that you missed it. Shucks!
If you’re dying to know what it feels like to have Facebook screw with your emotions, you’re in luck. You can install and control your own Facebook Mood Manipulator, courtesy of a new Chrome extension.
According to creator Lauren McCarthy, her mood manipulator is built on the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count, the exact same system that Facebook used in its now-probed experiment.
“Facebook Mood Manipulator is a browser extension that lets you choose how you want to feel and filters your Facebook Feed accordingly,” says McCarthy. “Aw yes, we are all freaked about the ethics of the Facebook study. And then what? What implications does this finding have for what we might do with our technologies? What would you do with an interface to your emotions?”
Well, now you can find out.
The extension places a little box at the upper right-hand corner of your news feed. From there, you can control four different emotional elements with a slider – positive, emotional, aggressive, and open. I’m going to guess that you’ll have the most fun turning the ‘positive’ down and cranking all the rest up to 11. Angry Facebook friends are the best Facebook friends.
So, try it out. F*ckin’ right, Facebook – I’ll manipulate my own mood.
By Josh Wolford · July 3, 2014