Part 1 of 4: Why Facebook’s Appeal is So Strong
I recently used a Time Magazine self-diagnostic program to analyze my historical Facebook use. In a matter of minutes, having tracked and backtracked through everything I had ever done on the site, here is what the app reported:
- I had belonged to Facebook for 1,877 days,
- Made 7,048 posts, and
- Wasted (note: their term, not mine) 22 days, 3 hours, 47 minutes. Over the five+ years I’d used it, that number averages out to nearly a full week of waking hours each year. To me that seemed a number big enough to investigate.
While I don’t think every minute on Facebook was wasted, I have certainly frittered away too much time on interactions of low priority and zilch payoff.
Even before I ran this application to quantify my engagement I had pretty much concluded that for me Facebook’s ROTI (Return on Time Invested) was low, and perhaps the time had come to consider dropping off and get back to doing other things that provided a better return.
I start this four-part series by admitting I am not the greatest of Facebook fans. The company’s algorithms determine whose messages I see and whose I do not, and their Gestapo-like control irritates me, as does the company’s increasing encroachment of customized and stealth advertising.
Everything about Facebook’s relentless data collection strategy and covert methods seemed designed to let Zuckerberg and Company intrude deeper and deeper into my life—an increasingly uncomfortable situation I had not sought, did not like, nor was paid to allow.
Facebook users are used and exploited by the company and the bigger the company’s influence has spread, the worse the situation has become.
This four-part series will take a look at:
- Part One: Why Facebook’s appeal is so strong.
- Part Two: Why people use Facebook.
- Part Three: Why people get “addicted” to Facebook.
- Part Three: What it’s like to quit cold turkey and walk away.
Why Facebook’s Appeal is So Strong
Dr, Judson Brewer, an associate professor at UMass, studies Facebook use and his work involves the answers to these three questions:
- Do you find yourself on Facebook longer or more often than planned?
- Have you given up or reduced your involvement in social, occupational, or recreational activities due to Facebook?
- Have you made a conscious but unsuccessful effort to reduce your Facebook “use”?
Your answers may explain why Facebook is so popular.
The reason Facebook has grown from one million to more than one billion users in less than a decade is not Facebook itself.
Dr. Brewer credit’s the site’s appeal to its self-promoting features: posting what you are thinking, posting pictures of yourself, giving your opinion on what others post via “likes” and comments, etc.
“Throw in a bit of intermittent reinforcement (e.g., not knowing when the next time someone will like or comment on your post — the same reinforcement schedule that casinos use),” he says, “and Facebook has a winning formula that gets us hooked.”
Facebook’s secret weapon: “love of self”
Recent neuroscience studies also provide clues why Facebook use is so popular and addictive. The root cause reason, it seems, is human nature.
Harvard’s Jason Mitchell and Diana Tamir performed a simple study where they put people in a MRI scanner with the choice to:
- report their own opinions and attitudes,
- judge the attitudes of another person, or
- answer a trivia question.
Each option was associated with a monetary payoff, which allowed the scientists to test if individuals were basically willing to give up money to “self-disclose.”
As each volunteer responded, Tamir and Mitchell measured their responsorial brain activity.
The result? Shocking: Participants lost an average of 17 percent of potential earnings to think and talk about themselves!
Why would anyone knowingly give up money to talk about themselves instead of others or answering trivia questions?
Similar to individuals who forgo job and family responsibilities due to drug problems, self-disclosure activates the brain region that lights up when someone takes cocaine or other drugs. Such dopamine reward activity is integral in the development of addictions.
Humans devote 30-to-40 percent of speech output to inform others of their own subjective experiences. Facebook knows this and preys on users’ desire to do it to its full corporate advantage.
END of Part 1
next: Part 2 . . . Why People Use Facebook