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"  In appalling news: Facebook has been effing with some Facebook users&amp;#039; moods\u2014on purpose. Plenty of research has shown that spending too much time on Facebook can mess with your  self-esteem and  mental state. But Facebook recently teamed up with a group of researchers to fill 689,003 Facebook users&amp;#039; feeds with either overtly negative or positive posts and monitor the impact it had on the unknowing participants. The scary part is that it really did affect peoples&amp;#039; moods: Users who saw more negative messages in their feeds posted more negative status updates than users who saw happier stuff in their news feeds. The even freakier part is that no one\u2014including the Facebook users who were affected when the study was conducted in January 2012\u2014really knew about it until now. Granted, you technically give your consent to participate in this sort of thing just by logging into Facebook. In case you haven&amp;#039;t read the network&amp;#039;s 9,000-plus-word  Data Use Policy (and come on guys, who has?), it features some not-so-fine print that permits Facebook to collect your data and do pretty much anything they want with it. For what it&amp;#039;s worth, they regularly use the stuff you &amp;quot;like&amp;quot; to curate your newsfeed. If you can overlook the Big Brother creepiness of it all, you&amp;#039;ll see this is usually a good thing, because, at least in theory, it helps you find the posts you care about and filters out the 500th cat photo posted by some rando who was in your class freshman year. (Unless you&amp;#039;re into that sort of thing.) Not surprisingly, though, this study&amp;#039;s methodology is raising lots of questions about whether mood manipulation on Facebook is ethical, let alone legal. Unless you&amp;#039;re going to deactivate your Facebook account (#NotHappening) you should probably care. [Via The Atlantic] So, how do you feel about Facebook manipulating your mood? Sound off in the comments! MORE: Seventeen and Facebook Take a Stand Against Cyberbullying Decode His Facebook Profile 9 Soul-Crushing Facebook Stalking Fails Everyone Makes Photo Credit: Chris Price/iStock Originally Posted On:  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.seventeen.com/life/reviews/a22972/facebook-manipulating-users/>