From Psychological Science, the flagship journal of the Association for Psychological Science:
First published online February 4, 2025
Worse Weather Amplifies Social Media Activity
AbstractHumanity spends an increasing proportion of its time interacting online, yet—given the importance of social media to human welfare—the external factors that regularly shape online behavior remain markedly understudied. Do environmental factors alter rates of online social activity? We conducted two large natural experiments to investigate how worse weather conditions affect social-media use in the United States, analyzing over 3.5 billion posts from Facebook and Twitter (now X) between 2009 and 2016. We found that extreme temperatures and added precipitation each independently amplified social-media activity, effects that persisted within individuals. Compounded weather extremes produced markedly larger increases in social-media activity. Days colder than −5 °C with 1.5 to 2 cm of precipitation elevated social-media activity by 35%, nearly triple the surge seen on New Year’s Eve in New York City. Our study highlights that environmental conditions play a critical—but overlooked—role in shaping digital social interaction.
So, when it's cold and snowy social media activity rises.
Related, April 2014:
World's Oldest Weather Report Found in Egypt: It Was Raining, People Were Crabby
And October 2011:
"Climate Change Caused Angry Runts"
It's been a while since we had a solar minimum.*
Hostile short people with nuclear weapons, this could get interesting.
From DiscoveryNews:
Climate changes resulted in war and famine in preindustrial Europe. A century-long drop in temperature even led to shorter people in the 16th century.
Chinese researchers recently looked at every known major conflict and crisis in Europe and correlated them to 14 economic, social, agricultural, ecological and demographic variables.
“Our findings indicate that climate change was the ultimate cause, and climate-driven economic downturn was the direct cause, of large-scale human crises in preindustrial Europe and the Northern Hemisphere,” wrote the researchers, led by David Zhang of the University of Hong Kong, in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Between 1500 and 1800, every change in average temperatures correlated to a change in agricultural output and food supply. The climate changes did not result in immediate changes in population growth, so even in a cold year with poor harvests, the population kept going up. More mouths to feed with less grain meant a rise in food prices and starvation.
Hungry people then either revolted, migrated or starved. On a larger scale this meant war, plague or malnutrition. But the disastrous effects of climate changes weren't instantaneous.
“Peaks of social disturbance such as rebellions, revolutions, and political reforms followed every decline of temperature, with a 1- to 15-year time lag,” reported the researchers.
For example, cold temperatures between 1264 and 1359 led to the Great Famine of the late Middle Ages.
During the long cold spell between 1559 and 1652, average heights in Europe declined by 0.8 inches....MORE
