There’s a simple reason why the dress debate and the rampaging llamas in Arizona have taken over our news feeds, our conversations and our lives this weekand it has more to do with cat videos than science. To put it simply, we’d rather debate something positive, like the dress, than ISIS and Department of Homeland Security funding.
This isn’t just speculation, it’s a fact: What the majority of us read, share and discuss is not “hard news”-oriented at all. A new study, led by applied mathematicians at the University of Vermont and Mitre Corp., analyzed the emotional content of the news we share online. And no matter the source of the news or the language, we use positive words more and overwhelmingly share positive stories over the negative news.
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