Posted by Collegio on Friday, September 12, 2014 ·
| Val Vita guest writer |
My dad always told my sister and me that we were part of a narcissist generation. I used to think that he was overreacting, but lately, I’m not so sure.
If you rationally think about it, we are very narcissistic. And I would blame social media for that. Especially Mark Zuckerberg’s creation: Facebook.
We are part of a generation that has the urge to post every single thing we do. Almost nothing is private anymore. I knew someone who said, “It’s not on Facebook, so it didn’t happen.”
That was one of the most idiotic statements I’ve ever heard – and one of the incentives that led me to choose Facebook as the central point for my future studies in the graduate school of communication.
The things people post on Facebook remind me of a theory we call Uses and Gratifications. Basically, the theory says we use media to get some kind of gratification out of it. It is not just the media that use us – we also use the media. And I strongly believe people use Facebook for a single purpose: to get “likes.”
Admit it. “Likes” make you feel good. You feel confident. You feel better. It’s like you are selling on Facebook an image of what you would like to be – but not the one that you really are.
Because of this crazy search for likes, in the last months, I talked to several people about selfies, trying to figure out what’s behind this self-obsession trend. And the majority of them actually told me they post pictures of their own faces hoping to get likes out of it. Many even admitted that they delete the picture if they don’t get a meaningful number of likes.
It’s kind of sad, because if you think about it … why is that really important? I mean, in real life (aka life outside of Facebook) what’s the importance of having 50, even 100 likes for a picture or for a Facebook status?
In the last few weeks, it was impossible not to see someone posting the Ice Bucket Challenge. It is for a good cause, they said. But I know a lot of people who didn’t even know why they were throwing cold water on themselves (try to ask them what does ALS mean and I guarantee you will find many who would be nothing but clueless about the answer).
Regardless if people are doing it for the likes or for the cause, the ALS association got more than $100 million in donations. A good marketing example of how you can make money out of social media where people would do anything for likes.
The Ice Bucket Challenge has cooled off and it’s no longer the topic of the day.
But the “me, me, me generation” is eagerly waiting for the next Facebook trend.
I guess my dad was right after all.
If you rationally think about it, we are very narcissistic. And I would blame social media for that. Especially Mark Zuckerberg’s creation: Facebook.
We are part of a generation that has the urge to post every single thing we do. Almost nothing is private anymore. I knew someone who said, “It’s not on Facebook, so it didn’t happen.”
That was one of the most idiotic statements I’ve ever heard – and one of the incentives that led me to choose Facebook as the central point for my future studies in the graduate school of communication.
The things people post on Facebook remind me of a theory we call Uses and Gratifications. Basically, the theory says we use media to get some kind of gratification out of it. It is not just the media that use us – we also use the media. And I strongly believe people use Facebook for a single purpose: to get “likes.”
Admit it. “Likes” make you feel good. You feel confident. You feel better. It’s like you are selling on Facebook an image of what you would like to be – but not the one that you really are.
Because of this crazy search for likes, in the last months, I talked to several people about selfies, trying to figure out what’s behind this self-obsession trend. And the majority of them actually told me they post pictures of their own faces hoping to get likes out of it. Many even admitted that they delete the picture if they don’t get a meaningful number of likes.
It’s kind of sad, because if you think about it … why is that really important? I mean, in real life (aka life outside of Facebook) what’s the importance of having 50, even 100 likes for a picture or for a Facebook status?
In the last few weeks, it was impossible not to see someone posting the Ice Bucket Challenge. It is for a good cause, they said. But I know a lot of people who didn’t even know why they were throwing cold water on themselves (try to ask them what does ALS mean and I guarantee you will find many who would be nothing but clueless about the answer).
Regardless if people are doing it for the likes or for the cause, the ALS association got more than $100 million in donations. A good marketing example of how you can make money out of social media where people would do anything for likes.
The Ice Bucket Challenge has cooled off and it’s no longer the topic of the day.
But the “me, me, me generation” is eagerly waiting for the next Facebook trend.
I guess my dad was right after all.
Nenhum comentário:
Postar um comentário