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Autobiographies in the era of Instagram. A comparison of written and automated autobiographies and its impact on positive and negative emotions

Museler, Leonie (2019) Autobiographies in the era of Instagram. A comparison of written and automated autobiographies and its impact on positive and negative emotions.

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Abstract:In the past years, autobiographies were found to play an important role for individuals in order to enable the act of reminiscence and to influence individual's current emotions. Social Media platforms offer a new kind of memory collection since more and more people share their experiences online. This paper compares an automated autobiography of Instagram called 'Top 9' with a traditional written autobiography and its direct impact on individuals' emotions. Participants emotions were determined using the positive and negative affect scale (PANAS). 33 Participants have been recruited. The study showed that the automated autobiography yields a higher score on individuals' positive emotions and a lower score on negative emotions. The written autobiography showed a higher score on positive and negative emotions. However, when comparing both conditions using Mixed Anova, it revealed that the autobiographical condition did not differ in respect to the effect on positive emotions. As opposed to the negative emotions, where the negative emotions of participants from the automated autobiography declined, whereas the negative emotions for participants of the written autobiography increased. In order to further investigate the tool of automated autobiographies in supporting reminiscence, it is recommended to take the content of the autobiographies into account.
Item Type:Essay (Bachelor)
Faculty:BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences
Subject:77 psychology
Programme:Psychology BSc (56604)
Link to this item:https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/78165
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