Social media as a living laboratory for researchers: the relationship between linguistics and online user responses

Purpose

Today, individuals use social media to express their opinions and feelings, which offers a living laboratory to researchers in various fields, such as management, innovation, technology development, environment and marketing. It is therefore necessary to understand how the language used in user-generated content and the emotions conveyed by the content affect responses from other social media users.

Design/methodology/approach

In this study, almost 700,000 posts from Twitter (as well as Facebook, Instagram and forums in the appendix) are used to test a conceptual model grounded in signaling theory to explain how the language of user-generated content on social media influences how other users respond to that communication.

Findings

Extending developments in linguistics, this study shows that users react negatively to content that uses self-inclusive language. This study also shows how emotional content characteristics moderate this relationship. The additional information provided indicates that while most of the findings are replicated, some results differ across social media platforms, which deserves users' attention.

Originality/value

This article extends research on Internet behavior and social media use by providing insights into how the relationship between self-inclusive language and emotions affects user responses to user-generated content. Furthermore, this study provides actionable guidance for researchers interested in capturing phenomena through the social media landscape.