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| Are you unconsciously influenced by what you see on social media? |
Recent national events have created a flurry of social media
activity. From the election and the associated fervor on both sides to
Superstorm Sandy; millions of pictures have been sent, tweets were flying a
mile a minute and who was behind them? Survey says: Us.
The need to be first or to fulfill our own need for approval
from others is explored a bit further in a recent article from Forbes' Jeff Bercovci. In a witty read, he discusses the various stages of approval seeking
and how by the nature of the media itself, it is impossible to have someone
notice something you're proud of unless you put it out there. He also discusses
the type of peer pressure created by the good deeds of others as well as,
pressure created to tell people you did something good.
I want to take this idea a step further this week. We've all
heard the echoes of our parents voices when we read, 'If your friend jumps off
a bridge, should you?' It's a universally used example to deter kids from buckling to peer pressure.
On social media, when you see that your friend likes
something, or in Bercovici's example; voted, or has an opinion on a current
event, or is ranting about the blown call in the closing moments of the game; does it make you feel
like you should do the same?
Does it motivate you to speak out on topics you normally
would generally have no business giving your opinion on?
My first instinct is to say, 'No. I don’t.' But, maybe I do and I just don’t notice?
When I see people post a picture of their kids, do I
subconsciously follow? When someone
posts a poignant news story, I re-post it sometimes, and yes, if someone posts
that they donated to a charity, or helped someone less fortunate, I have looked
into that charity or researched a situation.
Let's take it a step further. Should companies use social media to promote
their own philanthropy or practice philanthropy for the sake of doing good in
the community and egging others on to do the same? Is their cyber-bragging
wrong because they are a company? Should they wait for someone else to
recognize their efforts or, should they tell the world to promote a positive
message and goodwill outside their main line of business?
Should we wait for someone else to promote positive messages
about us or what we've done, or, should we bask in an introspective
satisfaction that we've done something positive in the world?
Social media causes us to seek responses. By nature we as humans generally want
approval, confirmation that we are good people with a purpose, so it seems
natural that we would post about positive things we think and do. The
confirmation from our friends further fuels the desire for more positive attention. It’s a never-ending cycle, but not necessarily a bad one.
What do you think? (You
can let me know here, on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, etc.)
Josh Kaplan writes on various subjects including
management, information technology breakthroughs, healthcare
IT recruitment and innovations, big data, IT staffing and recruitment, and technical news and trends.
