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Pictures of adorable animals are a fast way to bring a smile to anyone’s face, and now a new study has shown that sharing them helps people bond together.
When someone sends a cute cat pic to their parent, or shares a video of otters holding hands, they are taking part in an activity known as ‘pebbling’.
“Pebbling is a behaviour practised by Gentoo penguins who present pebbles to desired mates as tokens of affection,” Prof Ghalia Shamayleh, who led the study, told BBC Science Focus. “Our research observes a similar behaviour in humans interacting on social media.”
Male gentoo penguin offering stone to partner, who is bowing while standing on a rock, Mikkelsen Harbour on Trinity Island, Antarctica
According to Shamayleh, the images, videos and posts we share online act as “the pebble to our penguin equivalent. We share them with our loved ones as a token of affection, to reinforce our relationships.”
Animal posts make particularly good ‘pebbles’.
Focusing on pet-based social media accounts, the study found that content creators “imbue their love, joy and amusement into their social media posts”.
Sometimes this is through visual cues – such as dressing their pet up for the holidays or to welcome them to their human family. Other times, it’s through the accompanying text and use of ‘Petspeak’ – a mixture of infantile language, word play, and slang terms such as ‘doggo’, ‘teefs’ and ‘sploot’.
Animals also have a universal appeal – who doesn’t want to see a picture of an adorable puppy or kitten?
In the real world, animals act as a ‘social lubricant’, bringing people together as they ‘aww’ and fawn over them. Online, the study found, this effect only grows stronger.
At first, you might think that would imply sharing an animal picture with someone is a sign you don’t know them well enough to send something more personal – the digital equivalent of gifting them socks for Christmas.
However, what the study found was that people actually put a lot of thought into what social media accounts they share.
Shamayleh and her co-author, Prof Zeynep Arsel from Concordia University, monitored several pet-based media accounts to see how people interacted with posts, as well as interviewing several content creators and fans.
They found people used the images and videos to draw on shared experiences when sending them to loved ones, recalling and reaffirming their shared history.
For example, someone might send their friend a short video of two baby pandas struggling to stand up with a comment saying, ‘You and me at our first yoga class’.
The study also found that adding ‘context clues’ – such as the music on this video – shaped how people reacted and shared content
By choosing posts that reflected the receiver’s personal tastes – such as sending them videos of their favourite animal – senders also helped people convey their deeper personal knowledge of their loved ones.
“By sharing animal content with the added reference to the sender’s relationship, people digitally pebble their loved ones as though to say ‘This made me think of you, of our relationship’,” said Shamayleh.
So the next time you see a cute animal picture or video, don’t hesitate to share it and tell your loved ones how much you care.
About the expert
Ghalia Shamayleh is an assistant professor in the Marketing Department at ESSEC Business School. They specialise in socio-cultural consumer phenomena through in-depth interviews and observations, and investigate the impact of digital interactions on interpersonal and interspecies relationships.
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