The Psychology Of Social Networks - Alternative View

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The Psychology Of Social Networks - Alternative View
The Psychology Of Social Networks - Alternative View

Video: The Psychology Of Social Networks - Alternative View

Video: The Psychology Of Social Networks - Alternative View
Video: Stanford Seminar - Affect, Affordances and the Psychology of Social Media 2024, November
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Our craving for social media is not only psychological. It also manifests itself at the physiological level due to two substances produced by our brain: dopamine and oxytocin.

Dopamine

Scientists used to think that dopamine was a pleasure hormone, but now they are convinced that this neurotransmitter is responsible for our desires. Dopamine makes us want and seek what we want. Dopamine production is stimulated by unpredictability, little bits of information, and the possibility of reward. All this is present in abundance on social networks.

The influence of dopamine is so overwhelming that the craving for "reposts", "retweets" and "likes" in people is much stronger than the addiction to alcohol and cigarettes.

Oxytocin

This hormone is sometimes called the “cuddling hormone” because it is released when people kiss or hug. After 10 minutes of being on social networks, the level of oxytocin in a person's blood increases by 13%. This jump is comparable to the increase in the level of this hormone during a wedding ceremony.

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Oxytocin helps to reduce stress levels, the emergence of feelings of love, trust, empathy. We experience all these feelings while on social networks.

Numerous studies have shown that social media patrons tend to trust people more than other Internet users. For example, the typical Facebook user is 43% more gullible than other netizens.

Social media makes us feel a lot of good things thanks to dopamine and oxytocin. But at the same time, these hormones provoke addiction.

Social media activity: why users “post”, “like” and comment

Now let's turn to the main activities in social networks and find out what psychological motives are hidden behind them.

Why users "post"

It is not a discovery for anyone that a person likes to talk about himself: we devote 30-40% of our speech to talking about his person. However, on social networks, this figure reaches 80%.

Why is this happening? One-on-one conversations are messy and emotional - we don't have enough time to think about what we are saying. We have to pay attention to facial expressions and gestures. On the net we have time to build and, if necessary, edit our monologue. Psychologists call this self-presentation: a person positions himself as he wants to see himself in the eyes of others.

The feeling of self-presentation is so strong that when a user views their own Facebook profile, their self-esteem rises.

Marketers will be interested in the fact that social media users tend to present themselves through certain things. That is, by acquiring something, a person demonstrates his essence. Think about it, there are many things with which we can show our individuality to everyone: clothes, games, music, a logo on a laptop, etc.

This is why people have an incredibly strong emotional attachment to their favorite brand. It is very easy to prove the truth of this statement. Participants in one experiment were shown two photographs, one of which showed the logo of their favorite brand, and the other showed their lover / sweetheart or best friends.

Surprisingly, in both cases, the psychological arousal of the subjects was equally strong. That is, the logo of a favorite brand evoked the same strong positive emotions as a photo of a lover or friend.

Things and, accordingly, brands are a huge part of a person's personality, and in order to find something special in your brand that would help buyers in their self-presentation, you will need to try very hard.

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Why users make "reposts": self-presentation, strengthening relationships, public recognition

If we love talking about ourselves so much, what makes us “repost” other people's records? To transmit information to someone is a powerful impulse, and the mere realization that a person is sharing something important with others activates the so-called “pleasure center” in his brain.

First, “reposts” help us to prove ourselves: 68% of people say that they do “reposts” so that other users get to know them better. However, the most important motive for reposting is the desire to be closer to people: 78% of social media users claim that reposting helps them build relationships with other people.

Experiments have shown that a variety of obsessions arise in areas of the human brain that are responsible for his thoughts about other people. This means that the content of any social network should "appeal" not to a group of people, but to a certain type of personality.

When we post with the “right” content, we win public approval, which helps boost self-esteem. 62% of users say they feel more confident when people respond positively to what they post on social media.

How can brands promote social media acceptance? They should offer something interesting to share with people.

Jeff Goins wrote for the bufferapp blog about a little-known research project from the 1970s that had the global goal of creating a unified theory of how something becomes interesting.

The author of the aforementioned study, Murray Davis, believed that interesting content is "something that goes beyond the usual world of the target audience." Interesting content in some way denies the usual perception of a person, forcing him to shake up. A wonderful example of just such content is the story with a dress in either white and gold or black and blue stripes.

Why do users like it?

44% of Facebook users “like” their “friends” posts at least once a day, while 29% - several times a day. People do this because they want to stay in touch with their friends.

It is impossible not to recall the so-called "reciprocity effect": people feel indebted to those who once rendered them any service (in this case - put "like"). In other words, they want to equalize the score.

A funny example of this effect is an experiment conducted in 1974 by sociologist Phillip Kunz: on the eve of the holidays, the scientist sent Christmas cards to 600 complete strangers, and 200 of those strangers sent him postcards in return.

The reciprocity effect also takes place in Snapchat. Once you receive the image, you feel obligated to send the image back. And every time you receive a "like" for a new post, you feel an irresistible urge to "like" in response.

Why users leave comments

Most marketers believe that conversations with customers are incredibly important. They are confident that this kind of interaction can build a long-term relationship of trust.

Unsurprisingly, buyers feel the same way. Experts surveyed more than 7,000 consumers and found that only 23% of them interact in any way with brand owners.

Nearly all survey participants argued that shared values are the biggest motivators for interacting with a company and its brand. However, this does not mean that comments have no validity. On the contrary: there is a phenomenon known as "shared reality", the essence of which is that a person's perception of something depends on how he shares it with others.

85% of those surveyed said that reading comments on a topic helps them to perceive information better. What this really means is that comments have a huge impact on our own perception of reality.

One study conducted on a news site found that unsubstantiated negative comments on an article can completely change the attitude of other readers towards published material. On the other hand, polite reviews - even negative ones - make customers think positively about the company.

Simply put, any mention of your company on the web is your display. This does not always lend itself to logic, but this is how the human brain works.

All of this means that responding to comments from your blog readers, or dealing with reviews from your customers, is incredibly important. This is necessary not so much for the user whose review you are responding to, but for the company as a whole.

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Social media phenomena: selfies, emoticons and nostalgia

So, we figured out a little about some interesting and unique features of user activity on social networks. Now it's time to look at a few curious phenomena that marketers are sure to be interested in.

Selfie

Historically, portraits have been symbols of our status, able to control how others perceive us.

Today, a portrait is a way to understand who we are. The looking-glass self theory is a psychological concept according to which we have no true perception of ourselves. To get a clear picture of who we are, we need the opinions of others.

One of the reasons for the popularity of selfies is, in particular, that when looking at a person, first of all we look at his face: a profile photo is the first thing we pay attention to when we go to a person's page on a social network;

on Instagram, images with people's faces get 38% more "likes" and 32% more comments;

research in the field of eye-tracking shows that when we see a person's face on a website, we look into their eyes.

One experiment also showed that images of human faces can arouse empathy. The participants in this study were doctors who were sent medical cards with photographs of their future patients, and doctors treated the patients they saw in advance much more thoroughly and carefully.

Smilies

Most of us do not notice this, but we imitate the facial expressions of our interlocutors during a conversation. This emotional imitation is one way of building interpersonal connections.

On the Internet, we recreate this element of communication using emoticons and emoji. Today, 74% of US residents use stickers, emoticons and emojis when communicating on the Internet. Every day people all over the world send each other 6 billion emojis and stickers. Therefore, there is a close connection between the use of emoticons and the influence of social networks on us.

An analysis of over 31 million Twitter posts showed that emojis are a regular part of text. An experiment was also conducted, the participants of which had to communicate online. It was found that the subjects considered the experts who used emoticons to communicate more friendly and competent.

There are tons of ways to integrate emoji into your marketing campaigns. Famous brands like Ikea, Coca-cola, Burger King and Comedy Central have even created their own emojis that people are now happy to share online.

Nostalgia

Sometimes it seems that life goes by so quickly that you want to shout: "Stop, moment!" This feeling is called nostalgia, and this longing for the past could be key to a terrific new social marketing strategy.

Nostalgia is universally inherent in people of any culture, and therefore it gives us a sense of universality, a sense of love and security. Longing for the past makes us look at money differently. When people are encouraged to think about the past, they are more willing to give money to others, and they are also more willing to pay more to buy a product.

You don't need to own a company with a thousand years of history to make your customers yearn for the past. You just need to choose the time frame for which people are most nostalgic.

Urban Outfitters, for example, sells vintage stickers and notepads featuring Lisa Frank from the 80s and 90s (yes, the 90s are long gone).

but on the other hand

If we are talking about the psychology of social networks, then we cannot ignore the studies that talk about their negative impact. Some experts argue that with the advent of social media, we have become more lonely, distant and dull.

Evidence for this statement does exist. However, there is a small note: social networks do not change our human nature, they only slightly expand our capabilities.

For example, we all have a habit of evaluating our own worth by comparing ourselves to others. This can lead to the fact that we feel like complete losers: after all, people constantly share the happiest moments of their lives on social networks, and we cannot always answer them with something similarly joyful. We consistently compare ourselves to our friends who get married, have children, and get promoted at work.

However, social media can also bring people together. If you've ever shared your losses or setbacks online, you've probably experienced incredible support, even from the people you least expected it to be.

When we feel insecure, turning to social media becomes more effective than other ways of asserting ourselves. On social media, we often show empathy towards other users, and then this has a positive effect on our behavior in real life.

Have you ever wondered why animals are so popular on social media?

In interviews with the editors of Buzzfeed, who are working on creating viral stories about animals, it turned out that they are so popular because they are not about animals at all. Such stories demonstrate the best qualities of people: caring, self-sacrifice, etc.

Social media can make us insecure, but in general they show us the best there is in the world. They teach us to recognize the good in ourselves and in other people.