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Some of you who are smarter than me probably figured this out a long time ago, but I experienced a mini-epiphany about social media that I thought I’d share with you. If you find that you spend hours browsing through social media sites and feeling dissatisfied or disappointed a lot of the time, you might be playing emotional slots with yourself, hoping to find a jackpot.
What is a common reason for spending time using social media?
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One of the most popular reasons for indulging in social media sites, as selfish as it may sound, is to look for references to yourself or the stuff you do. Sometimes you’re looking for praise, other times you’re just looking around to see if you’re… relevant.
Being talked about.
Being talked to.
Being included.
Yes, you could argue that time spend online might be better spent working on important things, socializing in person with friends and family, or even just going to bed at a decent hour.
The thing is… sometimes we have interests that our friends and family don’t share. Maybe it’s obscure or fringe books, movies, music, television shows, art… whatever. Or maybe we have blogging, podcasting, or video ambitions that would puzzle our friends and neighbors. Therefore, we gravitate online where we can find kindred souls, people who like the things that we like.
Over time, as we create, publish, and network, we gain contacts. We join conversations. We come to belong, even if only in a temporary or weak way.
In these situations, getting some attention, especially amongst a group of peers, is like matching symbols on the slot machine. It’s exciting and it feels like a win. And we can’t wait for the next win.
Hitting the jackpot by finding a reference to yourself
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If you’ve ever spent any money gambling (I have, but fortunately not very often) you’ve probably experienced the thrill of trying… and trying… and trying… to get a damned jackpot. Slot machines, both mechanical and video, are insidiously good at liberating coins, dollars, credit, etc. How exactly does this work? I came across a psychological explanation from the book Self-Esteem by Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning: variable ratio reinforcement.
It’s simple but devious. You put your money in and hope that you’ll win something at the slot machine. Sometimes you’re lucky and you’ll get an early win, maybe even a few. You feel great because you won something, so you keep playing, trying to repeat that winning sensation. After losing for awhile, some people will just walk away, feeling slightly disgusted with wasting their time. Other people will keep playing, and playing… and playing… and playing… chasing a feeling of positive reinforcement that comes at a random time. If only we can just keep playing, hanging in there, eventually the big jackpot will come and we’ll win big. Variable ratio reinforcement (i.e. how often jackpots are paid out) is designed to keep you playing while holding out the hope for the big win.
The people who program slot machines know all about this and set their games to keep you going as long as possible… normally to the point at which you’re tapped out and don’t have money to play any more. Meanwhile, you keep playing because the payoff just seems to be at the edge of your reach, if only you can keep playing… because you never know when the next win is coming.
A lot of oppressed money has been liberated from the clutches of its owner to the “safe haven” of the casino through application of this psychological tactic.
What does variable ratio reinforcement have to do with social media?
First of all, I’m not suggesting that there are unseen rules and forces that mysteriously put references to you out on the Web in order to suck up your time and attention. Not like slot machines and the potential for jackpots.
Nonetheless, time, attention, and effort are the currencies that you pay while using social media. And you really can’t predict when you’ll get your next little bit of positive reinforcement via the websites and services that you haunt. Nonetheless, when we’re bored, lonely, sad, or otherwise unsatisfied, we may go searching for that fulfillment online. It’s not always to find references to ourselves, either: maybe we’re wanting to hear more about that movie/CD/concert/TV show/sporting event/current event and we can’t find it by other media channels.
No matter what the motivation is, there are times when we keep coming back to our sites over and over and over again for positive stimulation. Let’s face it, most of us get a pleasant little buzz when we see ourselves mentioned online, no matter how often it happens (except when something really bad about us gets exposed, of course…) We essentially manipulate ourselves into coming back over and over again to get that little high when some new nugget of information surfaces.
This is fine when you have a lot of spare time to do ego-sniffing (searching the Web for self-references). After a certain point, though, this type of activity will surely start eating into your valuable time.
What to do?
There probably isn’t a huge number of people scouring the Web for self-references. However, if this is happening to you and/or you’re finding that you don’t have enough time in the day to do things that you want to do, you could:
- accept that this kind of thing will happen from time to time and just try not to get too worried about it.
- cut down and control your social media consumption so that you have less opportunity to spend hours searching for stuff about you.
- get over yourself and spend your time on more important things.
Of these three suggestions, the last might be the healthiest.
I’m working on it.
How about you? Do you think this is a good analogy?
Variable ratio reinforcement is also demonstrated in the act of fishing. Time and again, anglers cast out their lure into the waters in the hopes of catching that thrilling excitement. They'll spend hours – days! – and a lot of money on the gadgets and equipment or the travel expenses just to get a fix.
Social media is like that. Cast out often enough, and finally, someone bites. And another angler is born…
Hah! Fished in!
I'm all for the last one, too. A little ego-surfing is to be expected when you're new to the game, just like when we first started blogging, we checked our stats every 15 minutes.
On the other hand, tracking references is also valid business & marketing feedback on the effectiveness of your social media marketing. This assumes that is what you're doing when you use social media. People who aren't tracking their marketing are just engaged in a bit of “arm pulling.”
And that's a fair point, Michael. There are a number of valid reasons to track what the world is saying about you. I just find that the random nature of that feedback sometimes provides an effect similar to what slots (and fishing) does.
Fantastic analogy. I'd never thought to link social media to slot machines, though I've often used this comparison to toddlers whining. Brilliant.
Toddlers whining? Hm…
Nice analogy. I'm tempted to add writing poetry to the list… it's not exactly a guaranteed win every time!
That goes for all writing!
thats true!
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