You might be wondering how this has any real relevance to the topics being discussed in digital marketing but hear me out. When Facebook became a worldwide pandemic, I use the word pandemic purposefully; I stopped to think what it really was it that made it so successful.
Was it the ‘oh so eloquent’ mission statement of ‘helping you connect and share with people in your life’? No that’s BS. As much Mark Zuckerberg had the noble cause of helping people understand the world around them, let’s be honest, Facebook is a paradise for stalkers and narcissists and taps into a primitive instinct of general curiosity. How many of you suddenly get excited by your friend count going up, or think about what status update to put up or how many people respond to what you say? Recent websites such as Klout.com and the Sunday Times Social media rich list are serving to breed a relentless self promotion that give rise to some wholly unhealthy behaviors.
Sites like LinkedIn I can see real professional merits to but the number of people who constantly seek some form of self validation and attention on social networking sites is alarming. Now I actually did some research on this. In an article entitled ‘Narcissism and social networking websites’ (Laura E Buffadi & W Keith Campbell) those with narcissism are predicted to have higher levels of social activity online with more self promoting content. Of course I have posed the reverse question but through my own observational evidence – I can attest to the fact social media sites can make even the most normal people become a little on the self obsessive side.
One might wonder that this level cycnism completely contradicts the fact that I love all things digital. I am excited by how it is changing the world as I have written in many blogs for this class but I am equally cautious and aware of its malaise.
I look forward to any comments you might have.
2 comments:
In response to your commentary on the "true purpose" of Facebook, Kudge, I think you are in the "right Church, but wrong pew."
I could not agree more that Facebook has alternate, deeper purposes for its users, far more essential to our human flaws and core functioning than the purported superficial priority of keeping in touch with friends.
Having said that, I do not think that the deepest motivating factor for even the most self-centered user is a controlling, narcissistic kernel inside them.
In my mind, contemporary obsession with Facebook is fundamentally an innate human confusion of the pictures and activities associated with Facebook and online social networks, with natural inclinations towards being "part of a herd" and "hunting our prey."
At first glance, you might think those are crazy and unrelated factors, but I look at Facebook and the sometimes unhealthy obsession and anxiety that precipitates from its overusage as products of our most innate, apelike tendencies of wanting an immediate group of peers as well as the feeling of gratification when finding and catching a challenging object of our affection, or prey for food.
These innate instincts are confused in our reptilian type central processors for the feelings that we get when acquiring friends on networks online, and reading what they are doing with their lives. Somewhere deep inside us we are confused by our feelings by the seemingly innocuous pictures and words on a screen, and that confusion brings spurts of fear, that drive us to resort to predatory like strategy on social networks.
Call me crazy, seriously, that's acceptable after this post, but this is a hypothesis I have had for a while.
Timon thank you for sharing this. I struggle with the balance of where it goes from confusing to downright unhealthy. I take your point it is confusing but do we like being confused? I am trying not to get overly philosophical here and keep some linkage to digital marketing. I want to believe you - that at the core we can preserve the tenets for which social media was supposedly created to keep in touch with our friends. But so much of what new social media is about, I fear, is tapping into and exploiting our human flaws. Take Foursquare, keeping a record of where we go so we dont forget or making sure our friends know we hang out at the coolest places in an ongong tournament of oneupmanship? Its hard not to cross that line - we are humans and we are flawed. But the cynic in me has this sense that many new Web 2.0 companies are all about exploiting and exacerbating those flaws to make money. But equally there are many noble ones so perhaps in my next blog those are the things I will talk about. And I would love to hear more about your hypothesis...this is one of many I have...
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