I recently attended a seminar in Boston at the Future M conference titled, “The Psych of Social.” Basically, this session explored the psychology behind social media. This session was interesting to me because it combined a physiological study with a panel of “social media experts.” I don’t put those quotations there to sound sarcastic. The truth is the panel was a group of extremely knowledgeable people who have studied social media for a long time. However, one thing I’ve learned about social media over time is that it is constantly changing. This constant flux makes anyone’s ‘knowledge’ seem timely to the moment they share their advice. Even members of the panel had different opinions about social media. In fact, I think everyone has their own ‘opinion’ about social media and these ‘opinions’ have been deemed, ‘knowledge.’ Who is kidding who, if someone asked me if I was a social media expert, I’d say, “sure.”
I mean, I studied it a few summers ago, wrote an e-book about it, and am in charge of social media strategy at my company… so I guess I’m an ‘expert’ too?
Anyways, I think that’s why I find the psychological aspect of social media so interesting. This seminar got down to the nitty gritty about why people make the decisions they do and act the way they do via social media. For example: That person that ‘friends’ you on Facebook that you haven’t spoken to in 10 years…what makes you ‘accept’ them and someone else ‘deny’ them? Do you get a certain ‘self worth’ out of your friend count increasing? Do you think you have something to gain from connecting with this person? Do you feel it is ‘pointless’ to accept them? Do you feel too good for them? Does someone ‘friending’ you that you wouldn’t speak to in real life if you saw them somewhere seem creepy or pointless to you? Why does someone update their status a million times, while someone else never does? How is the shyest person you ever knew up-dating their status 50 times a day? Would people say what they say behind a computer in front of someone’s face?
One of the members on the panel even described herself as, “Having a love affair with Twitter.” She said nothing could ever break her away from Twitter but she was scared because she noticed, “Google + may have a chance and be the first thing that could end her love affair with Twitter.” Which brings up another question: What makes someone so engulfed in social media they have a “love affair with it?”
All I know is technology of the future, more specifically the capability of the iphone 5, was discussed and what’s to come is pretty crazy! I can’t even decide how I feel about it. I think I feel like it’s a mix of creepy and awesome. Does that even make sense? The technology is clearly “stalkerish” but so advanced you almost don’t care because A-you want to be a part of something so innovative and B-you wonder if the word ‘stalker’ will really have any significance anymore because everyone will be stalking everyone.
All I have to say is I swore I’d never use Facebooks ‘locations’ app. That lasted about a month and once I saw other ‘normal’ people doing it…I was in! Obviously, I use it all the time now. The psych of social…so much to be discovered.
