Here's the surprising psychological reason the Internet loves cat videos
The Internet is basically made of cats.
Some of them are celebrities.
Like Maru.
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/558191d0ecad043c7353bd29/maru.gif" border="0" alt="maru">
Or Lil Bub.
<img src="http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/55819212ecad040c7853bd2a/lil-bub.gif" border="0" alt="lil bub">
Or Grumpy Cat.
<img src="http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/558192e2ecad04067853bd2f/grumpy-cat-2.gif" border="0" alt="grumpy cat">
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">People pay a huge amount of attention to them: </span>
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">• There are over 2 million cat videos on Youtube.
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">• They have 25 billion views.
<p style="padding-left: 30px;">• Cats helped build the readership of Buzzfeed, Cheezburger, and other sites.
<span></span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">But as Indiana University media scholar Jessica Gall Myrick notes in a new study, we know little about why felines are so big online. </span>
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>For her paper, "Emotion regulation, procrastination, and watching cat videos online: Who watches Internet cats, why, and to what effect?" </span><span>Myrick recruited 6795 Internet users and asked them about how why they consumed cat videos. </span></span>
<span>There are some big issues with the study methodology. While the sample size was large, the demographics were far from representative of the overall population: 88% of participants were female, and 90% were white. Plus, participants were asked to recall the way the felt before and after watching a video, and tons of research indicates that human memory is an unreliable narrator. </span>
<span>But even given those weaknesses, the study gives some interesting food — or is it catnip — for thought, since it sheds light about how and why people behave on the Internet in the way they do. </span>
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span>Take a look at the before-and-after of people viewing cat videos: </span></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><span><img src="http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/558184deecad04c02653bd2a-1200-970/cat-video-emotions-study.png" border="0" alt="cat video emotions study"></span></span>
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">While very much a preliminary study, the responses indicate that cat videos have a strong before-and-after effect: after spending time with Maru or Lil Bub, negative emotions go down, positive emotions go up. </span>
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This falls in line with a body of research regarding the effects that animals have on people. </span>
<span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Basically, Myrick's research suggests that people watching cat videos are getting the digital version of a well-documented, thoroughly verified therapeutic technique — pet therapy. In a 2007 meta-analysis of 49 studies , psychologists found that animal-assisted therapy </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">produces measurable effects with </span><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">medical difficulties, behavioral problems, and emotional well-being. </span>
<span>As Caitlin Dewey </span>notes<span> at the Washington Post, this study sheds light about why we have the Internet that we do: people watch cat videos not because they're trivial or meaningless, but because they make them feel good. </span>
<span>And there's a lot of good in that. </span>
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