Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Many Faces of the Social Media Beast

Social media has evolved into a curious beast lately. To explore my own evolution of social media
will perhaps reveal some interesting insights on the beast’s transformation. In graduate school part
I for me, law school, I was a very social creature. Having come straight from college, I felt
that I must keep up with social festivities and attend every event possible. I, however, began to notice that I wasn’t hearing about some outings until the last minute. I soon realized that these events were being posted on Facebook.How ridiculous, I thought. Why would a bunch of adults invite people to events on a site called Facebook. Whatever happened to a good old fashioned Evite?!? Still, I refused to join such a silly site. But I began to wonder more and more who was on it. Was I missing out? Were they finding out information about other people that I should know? Where was everyone being invited to in Facebook land?

So one night during Wineclub, my friend Anna put an end to the wonderment. “Give me your email, she said. I’m signing you up.” And that was that. Little did I know that that night I’d made the decision to forfeit thousands of productive hours of my life. Ten minutes later, after getting bored of
stalking ex-boyfriends through my friend’s account. . . ok, 45 minutes later . . . I began on the mysterious quest to “friend” people for my own account. Hmmm, what did friending mean. I started out with the obvious suspects. College roommates, old teammates, etc.  Then I hit a wall. I looked to Anna for direction on “friending rules.”  Could I friend my classmate who I’d only spoken with a few times?  What was Facebook protocol? It made me squeamish to friend people I didn’t know well at first, but I quickly got over that. And, immediately, became giddy when the friend requests came pouring into me opening the flood gates to new "friendships".

And thus began my foray into what I like to call “light internet stalking,” an irrational behavior strongly facilitated and even encouraged by the social media evolution.  It is for this purpose that many folks use social media. The social media beast has evolved in a way that people no longer think it is strange that you, for example, review 100’s of pictures of a person you’ve only met once. I am
always amazed when the guy from high school I barely even knew and haven’t talked to in 10 years comments on my wall post or when I’m tagged in a photo from high school. It is a little creepy.
So we can obviously find a lot of information about people and events than we could before. But is it
transparency we are all looking for, or is it ego stroking. I cannot help in looking at certain people’s
wall posts and cringe at the “look at me, look at me” posts. The nerve for these people to think I care
about where they ate for lunch or just how terrible there day has been because
they spilled coffee on themselves.

And don’t get me started on the dreaded b word posts. That’s right, those people whose profile pictures suddenly turn into babies. And then soon everything is a drool or poop post. Or how about the girl that tags any photo she is pictured in with a handsome boy within ten minutes. Sigh. The insecurity is patent and disturbing. But I’m guilty as charged too. When I’m at the Masters or Kentucky Derby, you’re dang right I’m throwing that up on Facebook. I want to share that with the people I like .. . or do I just want attention and ego stroking.

Another curious thing about social media is comfort levels. I typically monitor photos every few days or so to make sure no one posts one of me taking a keg stand (obviously, I use that as an example, and would never actually partake in such shenanagins). If, hypothetically speaking, someone ever posted one of me looking down at that silver tap, I’d remove it immediately. After all, that isn’t something I’d want my 800 closest family and friends to see. But then I have this one friend who thinks everything is fair game for Facebook. I cringe when I see the documentation and tagging of her sloppily frolicking around the bar. Her, not me, of course. The nugget we can take from this exploration is that everyone has different comfort levels and ways of censoring posting. Some censor a lot, while others let it all hang out. So researchers must be aware that what they are seeing is a censored, and dare I say, maybe even photo-shopped (don’t hate, there isn’t a picture I can't make look good with a few lighting tweaks), glimpse at people.

So knowing we all use social media for censoring, curiosity, attention-seeking, ego stroking, and light stalking, how useful of an information gathering tool is it. Is it useful at all? Or is it simply phony? Or is it a powerful insight into human hubris? In some cases, it is all of these things. Researchers must be mindful that we are all trying to put our best face forward, though the posts we make may not manifest our face at all. We may all be trying to put someone else’s face forward. Or we may be borrowing someone else’s face.  Researchers must be cognizant of the psychological impetus behind posting before the information can be valuable to them. The bottom line is that researchers need to be involved in social media themselves before they can really understand the social media beast and its many heads.

1 comment:

  1. Hi Tiarna - I appreciate your creative writing with this blog. It seems your thoughts are that social media really might not be that useful to marketers. I see your point and wonder if even the profile of the “aspirational” you can still provide companies some insight into at least who you want/hope to be.

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