3 ms·
It's an interesting psychological phenomenon. I think on some level the narcissism that Facebook encourages (look at me, I was here! My new shoes! A car we ren
by robbiep 14y ago
It's an interesting psychological phenomenon.
I think on some level the narcissism that Facebook encourages (look at me, I was here! My new shoes! A car we rented in Vegas! Look how drunk we are! On a plane to Hawaii!) especially for those that are not our close friends (and there's various debate about what our cortex is designed to handle in terms of social group siZe, and we all exceed it on Facebook) triggers jealousy, or perhaps just disgust at what we consider an over share.
However for people closer in our social scene, we don't experience the same level of turn-off, especially if we were involved in some of their activities etx.
That being said in my feed I rarely get people posting links or political issues, it is mostly banter between friends and photos which reflects my social circles really.
I don't know if I like the twitter-ification that is being suggested as something 'better', but personally I dislike the 140chr soundbite because I think it kind of encourages dumbing down of issues and in many ways for social activities is even more narcissistic. But this is just my take on it, clearly millions of people think differently.
Which brings up another point- if so many of us dislike these services, why do we continue to use them?
I don't even know where to start on that one.
- graue 14y agoThe culture of Twitter is different, though. It isn't just Facebook with every update cut off at 140 characters. Many have noted that on Twitter there's a widely held expectation that you'll at least try to be witty. (You can't spell "Twitter" without "wit".) I'm no sociologist, but if I had to guess, there are probably two core reasons for the different culture: 1. Pseudonyms (or first-names only) are allowed and widely used. So there's less expectation that your Twitter social life has to match your offline social life. 2. The asymmetric follow model. You can follow someone without them following you. You can unfollow someone and then change your mind and follow again without them even noticing. Combined, the dynamic of Twitter is that you follow based on interest, whereas on Facebook you friend based on acquaintanceship. That produces a pressure to be interesting. I'm not a particularly heavy user of either Twitter or Facebook, so please weigh in if anyone thinks I got this wrong. But this is why they feel different to me.
- tedunangst 14y agoI have never before heard that twitter posts are supposed to be witty. In any case, most of my friends' facebook posts would qualify, too. (you can also unfollow without unfriending people on facebook.)