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The Psychology of Facebook Examined
jg21 writes "In this analysis of the psychology of Facebook, a British FB user makes some telling points about how simple the reasons behind its success are. Among them, fear of 'online social failure' features prominently. From the article: 'Facebook also digs away at the insecurities in people...your peers can see your profile on Facebook, and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number, confirming your worst fears about the low opinion they have probably held of you over all those years etc.'"
That's about it.
Now, the author could go on to discuss the quality of those friends or some deeper psychological impact that this has on youth today (you know, like the title might lead you to believe). But, unfortunately, the second part reads more like an ad for Facebook than even an objective quantifiable analysis at what makes it better than other sites. I enjoyed this gem: FR looks AWFUL. Not in a vile MySpace way, but in a "My first attempt at HTML" way. Facebook is slick and so 2007. Friends Reunited is clunky and basic, so 1997. There is no way any self-respecting net user is going to evangelise about FR. So you claim that the looks are disgusting but not bad like MySpace (which is possibly the most successful social site so far) but bad like "My first attempt at HMTL"
Well, that sounds pretty opinionated and also very unhelpful. After reading this article selling Facebook, I feel like I need to use Facebook for social networking but I don't even know why
They also criticize ad placement in Facebook with a graphic that reads: "Facebook Ads! Yuck!" while on their site I notice a top banner, a left hand 'ads by Google' and also Advertisement boxes on the right. Um, you probably want to lay off the way that Facebook earns their income, especially when A) you say they're great for being 'free' and B) the site you publish on is using the same method.
So, a borderline Slashvertisement that is hilariously hypocritical and undertakes a psychological analysis of users on a social networking site without doing any surveys or real research that is often necessary to be able to say anything about your 'psychological studies' since any assumptions in the field can be as crazy as Sigmund Freud's Penis Envy Complex.
In this analysis of the psychology of Facebook, a British FB user makes some telling points about how simple the reasons behind its success are. No, no it does not. It is not an 'analysis' even by the loosest sense of the word & it certainly does nothing more than bash sites I've never heard about and avoid tackling the biggest obstacles for Facebook (MySpace and the zombie-back-from-the-grave-Friendster). Things must be awfully different between here and England for this to be frontpaged on Slashdot.
I'm going to go ahead and give this article an F and ask for the last ten minutes of my life back.
My work here is dung.
behind the success of all SN sites is most people prefer to sit at home sending messages to everyone they may or may not know instead of picking up the phone. It's more impersonal so people find it easier to waste time casually instead of calling up 30 people and going out so much.
"and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number" I'd rather have 10 or so people who are worth communicating with than 200 who I could barely keep up with. Most people who have enormous lists of friends probably view themselves as being in a popularity contest anyway.
I have around 70 facebook friends- most of which happen to be real friends. Anyone with 200/300+ facebook friends is most likely just adding anyone they know.
Of course this definition of friend is the sort that would bring you chicken soup when you had the flu, help you dig an old oil tank out of your yard, take your kids up to their cabin so you could have a quite weekend with your spouse, help you get through the loss of a family member or divorce...
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
Too fucking true.
I only have 12 friends on facebook because...I only have twelve friends that USE facebook. I don't just add random people because they're from the same school/region, and I don't accept request from the same.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
So just like real life then.
As in, there are some people who think that the number of friends you have (however rare you see, speak or do anything with them) is more important than a smaller number of quality friends who you see, speak and socialise with more often.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
I revel in the fact that I have a small number of friends on Facebook -- to me, it means that the friends I have listed are close associates, and not shallow acquaintances like someone who has hundreds.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
I understand that these SNS are growing to a point where people are interested in analyzing the psychology behind them, but I still need to ask... What ever happened to meeting people in real life? What ever happened to "ring...ring... Hey, it's (name), let's grab a beer after work?" While I'm not qualified to go any deeper than casual, day-to-day observations, it's just astounding to me that so many people are placing that much emphasis on a certain arrangement of 1's and 0's that are interpreted a certain way through computers and networks. I have friends in real life. Granted, I even have a few that I talk to online, mostly because they live overseas. However, I still make damn sure to keep weekly, if not daily contact with my nearest and dearest here in the red, white and blue. This whole "I have more friends than you" bullshit is... well, exactly that, bullshit. GO OUT AND MAKE REAL FRIENDS. BEING SOCIAL AND FRIENDLY MAKES YOU MORE REAL FRIENDS. (and quite possibly gets you laid. ;)
Just my 2 cents. I would like change back. heh.
A friend sent me a link for his Facebook profile. The link wouldn't work unless I was registered with the site myself. What a crock of shit I thought, as I declined to join.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
50 friends, or some space on a server allocated to an array of 50 strings of alphanumeric characters? There is a difference. What's the point of Facebook again?
Come on, who honestly cares whether someone has got 400 friends or 40, obviously it goes back to the old school days of "I've got more friends than you" but surely we've grown out of it - haven't we?
In my experience, people only grow out of it if they have to. When given the option, most people will gladly stay at that high school level of emotional development for the rest of their lives.
If there is a fear of social failure, then wouldn't people avoid Facebook if they suspected that other hold a low opinion of them?
As for the 300 "friends" argument - I have little time in real life for people outside work who aren't good friends. I certainly don't have time to maintain tenuous relationships electronically with people I barely know or barely remember. It's the quality of your friendships, not the quantity.
and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number
I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week
Summation 2
... 5 good friends over 100+ 'Facebook' friends anyday.
This is not the greatest
To be fair, though, one of my friends has tons of people on her Facebook page, and when I called her on it, she pointed out that a lot of random classmates/friends of friends/desperate guys sent her friend requests, and she would rather take the low cost step of adding them as a friend, rather than rejecting them and generating ill will. I guess you could classify that as insecurity, but personally I think it's a normal social reaction, given that it takes pretty much no effort/energy/thought to add someone as a friend.