Professor, users react to Facebook’s psychological experiment – WZVN

SOUTHWEST FLORIDA -

Are Facebook users lab rats? That's the question after news broke the social networking site did a psychological experiment on nearly 700,000 users - without them knowing.

For one week in 2012, Facebook tweaked what users saw in their News Feeds - skewing the content to be more positive or negative than normal.

They found that yes, Facebook users' moods are slightly affected by what they see in their News Feeds.

Psychology Professor Marty Bourdeois from Florida Gulf Coast University told us he can see both sides of the issue.

"I think probably what outraged people is the idea they're part of some grand experiment," said Bourdeois.

The professor also said the psychological affects of the experiment were thought to be very minor and short lasting.

Bourdeois also told us, he thinks people will be more skeptical and suspicious of Facebook because of this.

Facebook users we talked to didn't like the idea.

Maria Hobbs said: "I think they should have told us before, we'd have to opt in if we wanted to be part of it."

Mike Boyd said: "I don't think they should have done it and not by testing on us."

Facebook user Kaye Straley told us: "I would say that would be an invasion of privacy."

Meanwhile, Forbes reports Facebook didn't add a stipulation in their user agreement about research, until after this experiment.

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