{"284481":{"#nid":"284481","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Face It: Instagram Pictures With Faces are More Popular","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003ELike them or not, there\u2019s more proof that selfies aren\u2019t going away any time soon. Georgia Institute of Technology and Yahoo Labs researchers looked at 1.1 million photos on Instagram and found that pictures with human faces are 38 percent more likely to receive likes than photos with no faces. They\u2019re also 32 percent more likely to attract comments. The study is one of the first to examine how photos with faces drive engagement on large-scale, image-sharing communities.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe researchers also found that the number of faces in the photo, their age or gender didn\u2019t make a difference. On average, pictures of kids or teens aren\u2019t any more popular than those of adults, even though Instagram is most popular among younger people. The study also noticed that men and women have the same chances of getting likes or comments. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EA few factors did play a role. As expected, people with more followers attracted more engagement - but only if they didn\u2019t overdo it.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cThe more you post, the less feedback you\u2019re going to get,\u201d said Saeideh Bakhshi, the Georgia Tech College of Computing Ph.D. student who led the study. \u201cPosting too much decreases likes two times faster than comments.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EBakhshi also says that the more photos someone uploads, the lower the probability any single one has of getting likes or comments. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EShe and her team, which included advisor Eric Gilbert and Yahoo Research Scientist David Shamma, used face detection software to scan the photos.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EWhile the study examined how people react to photos with faces, the researchers stopped short of determining why users behave that way. They have some guesses, though.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cEven as babies, people love to look at faces,\u201d said Bakhshi. \u201cFaces are powerful channels of non-verbal communication. We constantly monitor them for a variety of contexts, including attractiveness, emotions and identity.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003ERegardless, knowing that photos with faces drive more engagement could have practical implications. Gilbert notes that social media sites such as Flickr or Pinterest could increase their search ranking and keep consumers onsite and active by featuring human faces in their online content.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u201cDesigners could also use this knowledge to quickly filter, prioritize and highlight photos shared by followers,\u201d said Gilbert, an assistant professor in the School of Interactive Computing. \u201cEspecially pictures that have just been submitted and haven\u2019t had enough time to pick up very many likes or comments yet.\u201d\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe team plans to learn more in the future. They\u2019d like to see if pictures of friends are more or less popular than family group photos, or if selfies attract more attention than group shots.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003EThe paper, \u201cFaces Engage Us: Photos with Faces Attract More Likes and Comments on Instagram,\u201d will be presented April 26 \u2013 May 1 in Toronto at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computer Systems. Gilbert\u2019s previous research focused on \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/georgia-tech-researchers-reveal-phrases-pay-kickstarter\u0022\u003Esuccessful phrases on Kickstarter\u003C\/a\u003E and the \u003Ca href=\u0022http:\/\/www.cc.gatech.edu\/news\/have-you-heard-nearly-15-percent-work-email-gossip\u0022\u003Eamount of gossip in work email\u003C\/a\u003E.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis material is based upon work supported by the Army Research Office under Award Number W911NF-12-1-0043. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Army Research Office. \u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EInstagram pictures with human faces are 38 percent more likely to receive likes than photos with no faces. They\u2019re also 32 percent more likely to attract comments.\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Study finds that faces in photos improve the likelihood people that will others will notice."}],"uid":"27560","created_gmt":"2014-03-20 11:35:55","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:16:03","author":"Jason Maderer","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2014-03-20T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2014-03-20T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"284461":{"id":"284461","type":"image","title":"More Faces, More Likes 1","body":null,"created":"1449244216","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:50:16","changed":"1475894964","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:24","alt":"More Faces, More Likes 1","file":{"fid":"199005","name":"452361493.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/452361493_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/452361493_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":5378682,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/452361493_0.jpg?itok=MTXzdJsC"}},"284471":{"id":"284471","type":"image","title":"More Faces, More Likes 2","body":null,"created":"1449244216","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:50:16","changed":"1475894978","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:38","alt":"More Faces, More Likes 2","file":{"fid":"199006","name":"177857945.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/177857945_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/177857945_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":3951834,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/177857945_0.jpg?itok=dkQL5PWp"}},"284521":{"id":"284521","type":"image","title":"Faces Equal More Likes","body":null,"created":"1449244216","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 15:50:16","changed":"1475894978","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:49:38","alt":"Faces Equal More Likes","file":{"fid":"199008","name":"instagram-rushmore.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/instagram-rushmore_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/instagram-rushmore_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":174557,"path_740":"http:\/\/hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/instagram-rushmore_0.jpg?itok=1YH8Pwy-"}}},"media_ids":["284461","284471","284521"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[{"id":"135","name":"Research"}],"keywords":[{"id":"654","name":"College of Computing"},{"id":"13342","name":"Eric Gilbert"},{"id":"37031","name":"Instagram"},{"id":"89591","name":"Pictures with Faces"},{"id":"114601","name":"Press Release"}],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71901","name":"Society and Culture"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003EMedia Relations\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.ed\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.ed\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-385-2966\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["maderer@gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}