On the Causal Relation between Users' Real-World Activities and their Affective Processes

Abstract

Research in social network analytics has already extensively explored how engagement on online social networks can lead to observable effects on users' real-world behavior (e.g., changing exercising patterns or dietary habits), and their psychological states. The objective of our work in this paper is to investigate the flip-side and examine whether engaging in or disengaging from real-world activities would reflect itself in users' affective processes such as anger, anxiety, and sadness, as expressed in users' posts on online social media. We have collected data from Foursquare and Twitter and found that engaging in or disengaging from a real-world activity, such as frequenting at bars or stopping going to a gym, have direct impact on the users' affective processes. In particular, we report that engaging in a routine real-world activity leads to expressing less emotional content online, whereas the reverse is observed when users abandon a regular real-world activity.