Entry # 2: Social Media Friend or Foe?

Artist Bansky

Social media got you down? Do you crave likes, comments and shares? Ever wonder why some of your friends are obsessed with these things?

Artist 2Wenty

Well here’s why, a recent study shows a strong connection between Facebook and the reward center in your brain. A like on Facebook for most people is equivalent to currency for the reward center. The more currency we receive the better we feel. Before social media our currency was a smile, encouraging words, tone of voice, eye contact, facial expressions or gestures. Now that social media has come around we have cut out the emotional attachment to interactions. We no longer have all those nonverbal cues, we have emoticons. Emotions in conversation is the peanut butter to our jelly, yet society has chosen to converse via an emotionless outlet.

Artist Asaf Hanuka

 Why is that? It’s actually quite simple, we are lazy. Having a face to face conversation uses emotional energy we cannot hand out like free samples. Blocking out the nonverbal cues via online communication reduces the amount of stuff we have to process. It is the humans form of blinders, emotional blinders. But a like could show approval or act of solidarity on a common cause, a virtual pat on the head, with no emotions involved. This type of virtual reward could lead to ridiculous emotional highs or a downward spiral if not recognized.

Artist Christopher Jobson

If you find yourself under that category maybe try what Elan Morgan did for a two week experiment. She stopped liking posts and started commenting. This is her take on the like and what happened to her when she stopped. 

Artist John Holcroft

“The Like is the wordless nod of support in a loud room. It’s the easiest of yesses, I-agrees, and me-toos. I actually felt pangs of guilt over not liking some updates, as though the absence of my particular Like would translate as a disapproval or a withholding of affection. I felt as though my ability to communicate had been somehow hobbled. The Like function has saved me so much comment-typing over the years that I likely could have written a very quippy, War-and-Peace-length novel by now.”
“Now that I am commenting more on Facebook and not clicking Like on anything at all, my feed has relaxed and become more conversational. It’s like all the shouty attention-getters were ushered out of the room as soon as I stopped incidentally asking for those kinds of updates by using the Like function.”

Artist Bansky

Another social media hang-up is lurking. Quit lurking it’s weird, and the University of Houston recently discovered lurkers are more likely to show signs of depression. The theory behind this is, everyone puts out there what they WANT to put out there. People create a social media mask. Don’t be jealous of someone’s vacation or new car, because you never really know how they are feeling inside that brain of theirs. Most likely they want you to like their post to get that reward center active. Mai-Ly Nguyen Steers, a teaching fellow and study coauthor at the University of Houston says, "This can be an unhealthy perception because, of course, people present themselves in the best possible light with whatever message they are sending out on Facebook," The University of Houston also found out that people who tweet everything are likely to have more strife in romantic relationships. 

Artist Banksy

Artist John Holcroft

So how do the social media attention starved overcome this hurdle? Have a healthy balance of genuine face to face conversations as well as the addictive like, comment, share relationships. Have real conversations online instead of liking everything. The University of Arizona found that posts with no interaction made that person feel as if they did not belong. So if you truly want that reward center to light up in that head of yours start commenting to feel connected.