I have been thinking about this: What do you think is the need that drives the "social" media? Is it the feeling of charity, or something more personal, or do these users (who submit and filter content) expect others to return the favor?
I have been quite an addict in fields like blogs, online games, forums and the like. The desire to withdraw could have been strong at those times, but it is almost impossible to do so as those who experienced that.
Even now I still am addicted to blogs. And it makes so little sense not to discontinue should visitors come no more. In fact, it's the reason why the blog is in partial apathy.
Over time, I believe it is the social networking : "connecting people". Or in more concrete terms it is... the ability to announce your presence, as well as offering you things that would not be possible or not easy to achieve in reality. The web makes these possible. Like the blogs for life and a place to express your views without a column or a book, the video sharing you can share your videos, imaging sites where you can share your photos, getting to know friends and lie tremendously with much less fear being exposed ( not quite the case as of a decade, in my opinion, as privacy problem arises ).
It has something to do with making something possible and easier, and most importantly to identify yourself.
Social approval. People seek recognition and acknowledgment. Social websites let folks feel like they're important.
You notice that other than outright trolls (who seek attention through infamy), few people will continue to use a social site where they repeatedly get negative karma? And the aphorism "Don't feed the trolls" attempts to make them go away by denying them attention?
It's a positive type of social interaction that is different than real world interactions. For me, it's a way of feeling more connected to a culture that does not exist in Pittsburgh.
I contribute to news.yc because I find it more entertaining than TV or video games. I should really pick up Rock Band though, that could get me to quit news.yc for a couple days.
Hacker News is an example of a third place. I hang out here, as I've hung out in many other netspaces. It's creative here, it's intelligent, and it's fairly diverse. People make things and write things and converse, and for many people, certainly me, that's a fundamental need.
Ditto. The level of discussion and topics of interest here are vastly better than what's available to me with my coworkers and people I bump into in real life. Can't speak for the YouTube community though.
A lot of the big users of social media seem to view it as some type of game - who can get the most karma, votes, diggs, etc. That's not to say they are the most wanted users, but usually the most prolific.
The best users of social media have always looked like the ones who are just showing something 'cool' that they have done or understand that involvement in the social platform can bring great benefits back in the form of an active community.
Yochai Benkler's book The Wealth of Networks talks about this at length. The whole text is available online but don't let that stop you from running out right now and buying a seminal work of our time.
Here's a passage you may find interesting:
"For a wide range of reasons - institutional, cultural, and possibly technological - some resources are more readily capable of being mobilized by social relations than by money. If you want to get your nephew a job at a law firm in the United States today, a friendly relationship with the firm's hiring partner is more likely to help than passing on an envelope full of cash. If this theory of social capital is correct, then sometimes you should be willing to trade off financial rewards for social capital. Critically, the two are not fungible or cumulative."
Benkler's argument is rather complex, so I urge people to read the chapter in full (if not the book) before gainsaying it.
In some discussion group we just settled, we were asked to write down what would be the most important for us in our lives. And to our big surprise 90% youngsters in the group used the words "recognition" or "social recognition". There wasn't any significant discussion before that could have biased this informal survey. It was surprising enough to catch my attention.
20 years later, here is how I explain this to myself.
It is known for many years now that our brain has special centers responsible of fundamental drives in our behavior. These centers have been detected and localized by changes in people's behavior when altered by an accident or a disease. The drives are related to hunger, libido, aggressivity/love, etc.
Assuming that mankind is the product of an evolution driven by natural selection, the existence of such drive centers makes sense. It ensures perennity of our species from the biological and the physiological perspective. Maybe the social perspective did not get the same attention.
To me, the existence of a drive for social recognition would make sense because it pushes toward social coherence and cohesion and thus also to stability while being flexible enough to preserve the capability of our society to evolve and adapt to context changes.
This social recognition drive is thus equivalent to sexual drive, with all the possible related pathology. Social recognition compulsion can for instance lead to mythomania or eccentric behavior.
So my impression, if you allow me to push the logic to its extrema, social network sites are a variant of porn sites.
They just tickle the brain centers driving our behavior.
I would thus say that social networking is directly related to the social recognition drive which is itself a component to get a stable dynamic system. If this is true, animals would show the same fundamental drive, and why not, ETs too.
Darwinism adequately explains the phenomena of social networking. It is basically just like when we sat around the campfire telling stories to each other. The men would tell stories about their great and dangerous endeavors. The women would want to mate with the man who had the best stories (had done the greatest thing, had most appraisal from his peers) because there would be a greater chance that he had the support and power to support the children.
This is a derivative of the campfire.
This is of course simplified tremendously, but it gets the basic idea across. When you think about evolution it is amazing what it can explain in terms of human behaviour.
I don't agree. Specially when most users post anonymously.
For example, I participate here, digg, and reddit, but never give any personal information.
For me is more like the getting my turn at the podium without fear of anything, as what I say is not going back to the real me. Of course, if someone really wanted to know who I really am, he or she could find out. But it's not worth the effort.
What I really don't get is the people that are so active in these type of sites that it seems that it is all they do. And they are proud of the fact of being so active. I find the comments interesting; however, for me, they are not enough to cover all my social needs.
I guess with time, we'll know the full effect of "socializing" with cute user-names all day long.
I enjoy taking short breaks from life responsibilities (coding, family, chores, etc) and see what similarly minded people are thinking about, ruminate about it and perhaps offer my own thoughts. The better YC topics and discussions have a Socratic feel I don't generally encounter in other places.
I share on YouTube for family. I share on YC cause the idea of digital karma is interesting. I only consume from Digg and Reddit, I dont feel significant on those sites.
When it comes to things like YC, Digg (Not so much YouTube).. for me, it's about information. I'm something of an information junkie. I need to be in the know.
And of course, I then like to pass that information on, so that it can be further disseminated.
* 65% seek fame/want the world to see their videos
* 59% do it for fun
* 41% want to share experiences with friends
* 29% want others to benefit from their videos
* 12% do it for other reasons
[1] - http://www.aedipenavarra.es/include_asp/fichero.asp?id=35