The psychology of likes, comments, and shares
My use of social media goes back nearly 15 years. First, it was LinkedIn, then Facebook, then Twitter, then Instagram. Since then a few have joined the list and been lost to the fashion and times, including Instagram. Twice.
However, my use of social media channels is vastly less than it was a year ago, and possibly the lowest it’s been since those early days when it all seemed amazing, connected, and caring/sharing.
I’m fascinated by why we share details of our lives, compare ourselves to others in comments, and feel the need to seek confirmation by hunting likes and other sentiments. There are many upsides to this, not least (for me) has been the amazing group of people who have joined me on my journey through the network I’ve built, the photos I’ve shared, the blog posts I’ve written, and the updates I’ve published.
However, the nature of social media has changed. It’s harder to find the non-political, non-aggressive, non-argumentative, or non-confrontational engagement that I’ve enjoyed in the past. This isn’t to say any of this is directed at me, it isn’t, but there are more and more of you in my networks that are yourselves being targetted like this for your beliefs, your choices, your opinions, etc. that means I just don’t want to see it.
The ‘need’ for confirmation and affirmation through the number of likes or connections/followers someone has is somehow more important than the quality of that engagement. I am quite proud that my Facebook friends are under 20, but my LinkedIn connections grow … I’m not sure what I’m doing with Twitter anymore.
We are more connected, more informed, and more susceptible to misinformation as agents for any and all purposes seek to distract us from our focus.
What I do know is that I am calmer the more time I spend away from social media. I am more able to focus and maintain that focus and motivation when I’m not checking the different platforms or notifications (I have notifications turned off on my devices, so I’ll only know what’s going on when I check).
People tend towards presenting a socially desirable, positive self-view to others when online. In turn, this gives individuals an increase in self-esteem, but a decrease in self-control. It all ties in with the idea of keeping up appearances, and painting a picture to the audience that compose of our friends lists and beyond. Individuals can choose information that they post, and keeping up a certain online identity increases self-esteem, but can mask our true personas. For the narcissist, this feeds into the need to be admired and the more reception a post receives, the more is fed into this type of behavior. For the anxious, online interactions can translate into real-life interaction, and feed into the anxious feeling of whether people like them or not, corresponding with what kind of reception online posts receive.
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At the very base, one should not turn to social media to boost self-esteem since it signifies a reliance on externalities to achieve a sense of heightened feelings of worth, rather than looking inwardly. The very definition of self-esteem is the ‘cognitive and, above all, emotional appraisal of our own worth’, and when we misplace appraisal on fleeting social media, likes and comments, we both become part of a negative cycle and mistake short-term satisfaction with necessary long-term and meaningful work we must do on ourselves to improve self-esteem.
‘The Psychology of Social Media — Why We Feel the Need to Share’ byVictoria Halina (2019)
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As the idea of the internet as an aggressive playground dominates public discourse, the insinuation that we must be ‘resilient’ to online abuse is disturbingly common. In the past, at times of cultural unease, ground-breaking psychological research had profound and vital societal impact. Is such a time upon us again?
‘Why do we ‘like’ social media?’ by Ciarán Mc Mahon (2015)
Photo by Prateek Katyal on Unsplash
Hi David,
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this. I suspect many of us can relate to many of your observations and experiences linked to social media. Things are definitely different. It doesn’t just feel different. Things are different. When we started using social media (we were the first generation) it was about making genuine human connections and we did. We were excited about the prospect to be able to connect with people from different parts of the world we would otherwise never meet. And it was the first time this was actually possible. Share our excitement, share our ideas, share our need for help and help others. Some of the connections were ephemeral, others survived for longer and some of them keep going. This is not dissimilar with what is happening outside social media, what always happened.
I am wondering if the motivation to be on social media has changed? Have we moved from being happy to just being together to wanting to be seen together? Is tweeting, retweeting, liking and commenting turning into a highly political and strategic act? It certainly often feels this way. We seem to have “progressed” from a very embracing culture we experienced initially on social media to a highly “exclusive” and increasingly often self-centred one. The massification of “friendships” is an illusion; the perceived transparency of communication is I think just a perceived transparency; masking, polishing and self-promoting while hunting for more and more popularity seems to have become an unhealthy obsession that is damaging relationships and turns everything into a competitive race. Aggression is normalised as you say, through the call that we need to become more resilient, so nothing wrong with abusive behaviour, we just need to toughen up!
Despite all the above, the social media jungle has helped me to find individuals and make meaningful and genuine connectings that have enriched my life. How can we focus more on these and what really matters in life?
I’ve no doubt our own perception and use of social media has developed (matured?) over the years and, as you say, the motivation too. The last few years have seen a dramtic and sometimes violent shift in what is happening in the world around us, and many cannot and should not stand by and let it happen without voicing our fears and concerns. This is all totally understandable, and to be expected, but these changes have made us, as an audience, more polarised from each other, less empathetic to each other, and of shorter fuse … all you have to is check the trending topics on daily basis to see the number of topics that are based around hate. I’m sure that, when the trends were first listed like this on Twitter, it wasn’t like this – it would be interesting to see a sentiment analysis of these changes over time, mapped to news and current events (Trump, Brexit, Covid, etc).
Stay safe Chrissi, and thanks for the comment.
Very true David! And thank you for triggering the thinking and engaging.