More moral language doesn't always mean more engagement online
Moral language—words and phrases that express ideas about right and wrong, virtues, fairness, harm and social obligations—is widely used in social media posts and other online content. Posts containing moral language sometimes spread quickly and attract a lot of attention on social media, yet whether moral language is always linked to greater user engagement remains unclear.
Recent research from Universidad del Desarrollo, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and Northwestern University has found that while moral language can increase online engagement, excessive use of such language may actually reduce engagement. The study analyzed 1.62 million posts and comments from Twitter, Reddit, and 8chan, looking at how moral language and its concentration affected user interaction.
While moral language was linked to higher engagement up to a point, the research showed that messages saturated with moral language tended to receive fewer reposts and replies when compared to messages with less concentrated moral content.
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