Motivations for Sharing
I have always been interested in the propensity of social media users of sharing information. It always amazes me the type of information people share on social media, for all the world to see, that they would not share even with an acquaintance. And after this week's readings and discussions, I have gained a better understanding of the motivations why.
This week's topics centred around communities and networks. One particular takeaway I had was the notion of "context collapse". Having gone through it so many times, I never knew that there was a term to define it. For me, I have a very structured way of living life (I would like to think so, anyway). As such, I like to clearly segment the different aspects of my life, and each segment has its own set of rules and characteristics. For example, I definitely act differently when I am in uniform at work, as compared to when I am outside in a civilian context. However, of course there are times when I will bump into a superior in a mall or at a restaurant, and proceed to have a fairly awkward conversation about why they were there, and if he/she was with family. I usually cannot wait to leave. Now I know, context collapse.
However, the main thing that interested me was the two articles: Dennen's (2011) "Conversation on the Hashtag", and Lingel & Naaman's (2011) "You Should Have Been There". I fall into the category of people who grew up with the internet and social media. Thus, I knew a time when publicly sharing of your personal information, likes/dislikes, and political/social affiliations was unheard of. However, as an avid user of social media, I have become accustomed to sharing such information to a certain degree.
And based on readings and personal experiences, they come in two categories, one altruistic, and the other slightly more selfish.
Altruism. In both this week's articles they explain that people have a penchant for sharing because they see it as a "gift economy" where the content-creators or authors see their content as useful to others. They also use social media as a means of archiving or collaboration. Lingel & Naaman (2011) also used signal theory to explain that to build a community, it was necessary to have relationships. Thus, the sharing can be seen as the first step to interaction, the cornerstone of building said relationships.
Self-gratification. Another article I found by Ma & Chan (2014) introduced two terms (a) perceived online attachment motivation (POAM) ["the degree to which an individual believes that he or she can improve his or her social interaction and the sense of communion with others on an online learning platform’’], and (b) perceived online relationship commitment (PORC) [‘‘the degree to which an individual believes that he or she can persist in a relationship with others on an online learning platform’’]. They further explained that humans have an innate need for interaction and sense of belonging, and thus sharing can be seen as a means to have these needs met. Finally, yet others explain that sharing occurs completely for self-gratification. They like having their egos stroked, and the "likes' and 'shares' provide them this gratification
Let me know what you guys think!
Josh, out.
This week's topics centred around communities and networks. One particular takeaway I had was the notion of "context collapse". Having gone through it so many times, I never knew that there was a term to define it. For me, I have a very structured way of living life (I would like to think so, anyway). As such, I like to clearly segment the different aspects of my life, and each segment has its own set of rules and characteristics. For example, I definitely act differently when I am in uniform at work, as compared to when I am outside in a civilian context. However, of course there are times when I will bump into a superior in a mall or at a restaurant, and proceed to have a fairly awkward conversation about why they were there, and if he/she was with family. I usually cannot wait to leave. Now I know, context collapse.
However, the main thing that interested me was the two articles: Dennen's (2011) "Conversation on the Hashtag", and Lingel & Naaman's (2011) "You Should Have Been There". I fall into the category of people who grew up with the internet and social media. Thus, I knew a time when publicly sharing of your personal information, likes/dislikes, and political/social affiliations was unheard of. However, as an avid user of social media, I have become accustomed to sharing such information to a certain degree.
And based on readings and personal experiences, they come in two categories, one altruistic, and the other slightly more selfish.
Altruism. In both this week's articles they explain that people have a penchant for sharing because they see it as a "gift economy" where the content-creators or authors see their content as useful to others. They also use social media as a means of archiving or collaboration. Lingel & Naaman (2011) also used signal theory to explain that to build a community, it was necessary to have relationships. Thus, the sharing can be seen as the first step to interaction, the cornerstone of building said relationships.
Self-gratification. Another article I found by Ma & Chan (2014) introduced two terms (a) perceived online attachment motivation (POAM) ["the degree to which an individual believes that he or she can improve his or her social interaction and the sense of communion with others on an online learning platform’’], and (b) perceived online relationship commitment (PORC) [‘‘the degree to which an individual believes that he or she can persist in a relationship with others on an online learning platform’’]. They further explained that humans have an innate need for interaction and sense of belonging, and thus sharing can be seen as a means to have these needs met. Finally, yet others explain that sharing occurs completely for self-gratification. They like having their egos stroked, and the "likes' and 'shares' provide them this gratification
Let me know what you guys think!
Josh, out.
Yeah! I can see that with egos being stroked for sure on some services. Was covering memes and the attention we gave them, and one of the big issues of attention is that we may give too much to people who don't care, which is what they want as they get attention. That persistence of staying within a relationship is most likely false on a random fb msg board but more attached on a group page or reddit that supports endeavors in that specific community!
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