Cat Videos Boost Human Health

Why does everyone love eccentric cat videos? While online stars like Lil Bub or Grumpy Cat grab attention, watching them makes people healthier.

A new study found that looking at cats online can increase your energy and emotions, even as it brings down negative feelings, according to dailymail.

It was found in a new study of 7,000 people by assistant professor Jessica Gall Myrick of Indiana University. "We all have watched a cat video online, but there is really little empirical work done on why so many of us do this, or what effects it might have on us," added Myrick, who owns a pug dog, though she doesn't have cats.

She found that the most popular sites for viewing cat videos were Facebook, YouTube, Buzzfeed and I Can Has Cheezburger.

She wanted to know: do cat videos make us as happy as pet therapy? Or do they make us feel guilty for putting off things that have to be tackled?

Published in the latest issue of Computers in Human Behavior, it was distributed widely in the social media by Lil Bub's owner, Mike Bridavsky, who lives in Bloomington, according to indianaedu.

The study showed that 36 per cent called themselves "cat persons" even as 60 per cent said they liked both kinds of pets.

However, most of the participants admitted feeling more dynamic and positive after watching cat-related media online. Their bodies also felt less emotions, such as "anxiety, annoyance and sadness," after seeing cats on the Internet.

Guilt, though, was not part of their emotions. The pleasure was always more than guilt about putting off tasks.

In fact, people who were agreeable and shy seemed more likely to watch such videos.

With more than two million cat videos on YouTube in 2014, generating almost 26 billion views, it was discovered that cat videos got more views per video than any other YouTube videos.

"Some people may think watching online cat videos isn't a serious enough topic for academic research, but the fact is that it's one of the most popular uses of the internet today," Myrick said. "If we want to better understand the effects the internet may have on us as individuals and on society, then researchers can't ignore internet cats anymore."