Addicted to Facebook
Social media is addictive because it provides an escape from reality. For some people, that means avoiding responsibility. Whilst for others, it’s a way of expressing their creativity (or escaping the mundane aspects of life).
Social media, at this point in time, is a way of life for billions of people around the world. Despite being warned on the dangers of addiction, people are increasingly hooked on them. This is because they’re designed to follow foolproof recipes that ensure their success.
These days, most people use social networks as a way to stay connected with family and friends, among other things. We may not do much advertising on these media sites but they can never replace the speed or volume of information they’re able to provide us. The aim is to “glue” the users to the app. They want people to use it consistently, and stay on it for as long as possible.
Many experts believe they have found the secret behind the popularity of social media: It’s not technology that makes it addictive – it’s much simpler than that. Social media networks receive often critique for the addictive nature of their simulations that encourage a particular behavior- their critics call these “cheap tricks”. Yet, they make up a huge market and offer endless opportunities to keep users coming back.
When Facebook introduced its famous “like” symbol in 2009, it became a powerful democratizing force in the internet. But at some point, the reality proved to be much more complex than that.” Today, there is no one who posts anything on any social network without the hope that it will be liked by as many people as possible. This need for validation is what makes millions of people try and create online content every day in all possible ways. Their motivation lies in trying to get the approval of others.
Attention Economy
Experts even call this “The Attention Economy” since the commodification of one’s attention is directly linked to profit. This is especially true on a social network where advertisers are successful in proportion to the number of users they have.
A major reason for this is the universality of smartphones & trending social media apps, predominantly on Facebook. An example would be touching the screen to refresh a feed & seeing recent updates. In the hope that we will find something more interesting, we refresh our social media feed again and again. In a way, it feels like there is no end to this.
Logically speaking the way this works is very similar to slot machines in casinos, which are based on one of the fundamental principles of psychology: The sweet and delightful anticipation. Somewhere along the line, we’ll get what we really want. Even if we don’t know what it is.
You can find another story about Facebook here.
Author: PC-GR
The World of Technology
