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The NYT article about over-sharing vacation photos can be generalized to the widespread human nature of narcissism: people share too many personal highlights t

by jasode 9y ago

The NYT article about over-sharing vacation photos can be generalized to the widespread human nature of narcissism: people share too many personal highlights that most others don't care about. E.g. new mother shares endless stream of baby photos while most of her 20-something ex-college friends/coworkers are oversaturated with it. (E.g. the sentiment that if you've seen one blob of an undifferentiated poop machine in diapers, you've seen them all.) Yes, the infant is The Most Interesting Person In The World to that mother so it seems logical to her that others would find her posted photos to be interesting too. On a large scale, we simply have no self-awareness about our narcissism and its banality to others. Long before the existence of the internet and Facebook in the days of film photography, hosts would torture their dinner guests by having them gather in the living room and flip through slides[1] of the hosts' vacation. The guests silently suffer through the boring presentation but of course, etiquette means nobody would dare say, "Joe, this is boring and we're going home now." Polite society on a large-scale, self-censors the expression of boredom which perversely continues the large-scale unawareness that sharing too many personal highlights is subjecting friends to cruel & unusual punishment. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=kodak+slide+carousel+slide+projector&source=lnms&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=kodak+slide+carousel+slide+p...

kobeya 9y ago
Don't like it, block it. No one is forcing you to look at it -- unlike your example. I fail to see what the problem is.
- AznHisoka 9y ago
  Did OP ever say it was a problem for him? He is just stating what he notices about people's tendencies.
Retric 9y ago
I actually rather enjoyed siting through some of those slide shows. It's largely a question if they try and take and show interesting photos, or if they just take pictures of themselves.
rayiner 9y ago
As someone in the cohort that was in college when Facebook was first invented, who are now all having kids, I don't really see that phenomenon at play. Nobody responds when I post, e.g. a rebuttal to the recent Atlantic article that discusses US versus Canadian public spending. Putting up a picture of my kid, in contrast, will result in dozens of likes. (I of course feel reciprocally.) I'd turn this around and say, if you're annoyed by pictures of other peoples' kids or their vacations or what they ate, maybe you're the narcissistic one. In a modern world where people often move far away from friends and family to pursue careers, Facebook fills in for a lot of the shared experience that people would otherwise have. I want to see pictures of my friends baby, because I can't visit her often on the opposite coast. I want to see the latest food my father in law put in the smoker, because I can't drop in to steal a sample. I'm interested in the lives of my friends and family and Facebook let's me at least keep a bit in touch with what's happening.
- jasode 9y ago
  >when Facebook was first invented, who are now all having kids, I don't really see that phenomenon at play. I don't doubt that there are people that genuinely enjoy others' baby photos. However, I wouldn't be able to tell which comments left on each others' pages were expressions of authentic sincerity instead of mindless reflexes of etiquette. That said, this Reddit thread[1] highlights a collective exasperation that clearly comes from somewhere. Likewise, there are surely some who enjoy others vacation slideshows (e.g. Retric in this thread) but again, there's a widespread rejection of them[2] that comes from somewhere. People won't complaint directly to the posters face -- e.g. they won't write on the posters wall to "stop flooding the feed with your stupid vacation photos". People are generally too polite to do that. >, maybe you're the narcissistic one. It's not about me. It's about observing social dynamics: 1) People overestimate the parts of their personal lives that are interesting to others 2) People are silent or insincerely praise the over-sharing of others' personal highlights Those 2 factors create a weird/interesting feedback cycle that transcends Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat. It's been happening long before that. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/rtapw/my_facebook_news_feed_now_that_all_my_friends_are/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/rtapw/my_facebook_ne... [2] http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/06/29/no-one-wants-to-see-your-boring-vacation-photos-study-says.html http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/06/29/no-one-wants-to-see...
jaclaz 9y ago
>Long before the existence of the internet and Facebook in the days of film photography, hosts would torture their dinner guests by having them gather in the living room and flip through slides[1] of the hosts' vacation. Yep, I do remember some of the most fierce fights against falling asleep in those occasions. But - to give some sociological insight - those terrible after dinners came out because of sheer convenience. Till then there were "pictures" (not slides) that costed a lot of money to print in a decently large format, so typically you took less shots, then had them printed in a very small format, and only reprinted a handful out of each roll. With slides the costs were a fraction, even considering the cost (rather high for today's standards) of the projector and of the carousels. Now what if someone (not the government as it would be anti-democratic, not google as it would be a dominant position abuse, etc.) would put a minimal cost for publishing on the net these images (let's say 0.50 US$/apiece, of course devolved entirely to a non-profit/humanitariaon association)? I would bet that in no time we would have the amount of those photos reduced to 1/20th or less.
teddyh 9y ago
Yes. And when someone dares to suggest that maybe you shouldn’t have used a dinner-planning group to announce the birth of your baby, you get flamed to a crisp: http://www.art.net/Studios/Hackers/Hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-doctor.html http://www.art.net/Studios/Hackers/Hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-d...
- mdekkers 9y ago
  RMS though - I don't think he can say "good morning" without offending half the human population....
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

by jasode 9y ago

kobeya 9y ago

Don't like it, block it. No one is forcing you to look at it -- unlike your example. I fail to see what the problem is.

AznHisoka 9y ago
Did OP ever say it was a problem for him? He is just stating what he notices about people's tendencies.

Retric 9y ago

I actually rather enjoyed siting through some of those slide shows. It's largely a question if they try and take and show interesting photos, or if they just take pictures of themselves.

rayiner 9y ago

As someone in the cohort that was in college when Facebook was first invented, who are now all having kids, I don't really see that phenomenon at play. Nobody responds when I post, e.g. a rebuttal to the recent Atlantic article that discusses US versus Canadian public spending. Putting up a picture of my kid, in contrast, will result in dozens of likes. (I of course feel reciprocally.) I'd turn this around and say, if you're annoyed by pictures of other peoples' kids or their vacations or what they ate, maybe you're the narcissistic one. In a modern world where people often move far away from friends and family to pursue careers, Facebook fills in for a lot of the shared experience that people would otherwise have. I want to see pictures of my friends baby, because I can't visit her often on the opposite coast. I want to see the latest food my father in law put in the smoker, because I can't drop in to steal a sample. I'm interested in the lives of my friends and family and Facebook let's me at least keep a bit in touch with what's happening.

jasode 9y ago
>when Facebook was first invented, who are now all having kids, I don't really see that phenomenon at play. I don't doubt that there are people that genuinely enjoy others' baby photos. However, I wouldn't be able to tell which comments left on each others' pages were expressions of authentic sincerity instead of mindless reflexes of etiquette. That said, this Reddit thread[1] highlights a collective exasperation that clearly comes from somewhere. Likewise, there are surely some who enjoy others vacation slideshows (e.g. Retric in this thread) but again, there's a widespread rejection of them[2] that comes from somewhere. People won't complaint directly to the posters face -- e.g. they won't write on the posters wall to "stop flooding the feed with your stupid vacation photos". People are generally too polite to do that. >, maybe you're the narcissistic one. It's not about me. It's about observing social dynamics: 1) People overestimate the parts of their personal lives that are interesting to others 2) People are silent or insincerely praise the over-sharing of others' personal highlights Those 2 factors create a weird/interesting feedback cycle that transcends Facebook/Instagram/Snapchat. It's been happening long before that. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/rtapw/my_facebook_news_feed_now_that_all_my_friends_are/ https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/rtapw/my_facebook_ne... [2] http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/06/29/no-one-wants-to-see-your-boring-vacation-photos-study-says.html http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2017/06/29/no-one-wants-to-see...

jaclaz 9y ago

>Long before the existence of the internet and Facebook in the days of film photography, hosts would torture their dinner guests by having them gather in the living room and flip through slides[1] of the hosts' vacation. Yep, I do remember some of the most fierce fights against falling asleep in those occasions. But - to give some sociological insight - those terrible after dinners came out because of sheer convenience. Till then there were "pictures" (not slides) that costed a lot of money to print in a decently large format, so typically you took less shots, then had them printed in a very small format, and only reprinted a handful out of each roll. With slides the costs were a fraction, even considering the cost (rather high for today's standards) of the projector and of the carousels. Now what if someone (not the government as it would be anti-democratic, not google as it would be a dominant position abuse, etc.) would put a minimal cost for publishing on the net these images (let's say 0.50 US$/apiece, of course devolved entirely to a non-profit/humanitariaon association)? I would bet that in no time we would have the amount of those photos reduced to 1/20th or less.

teddyh 9y ago

Yes. And when someone dares to suggest that maybe you shouldn’t have used a dinner-planning group to announce the birth of your baby, you get flamed to a crisp: http://www.art.net/Studios/Hackers/Hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-doctor.html http://www.art.net/Studios/Hackers/Hopkins/Don/text/rms-vs-d...

mdekkers 9y ago
RMS though - I don't think he can say "good morning" without offending half the human population....
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]