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In social networks, we will always find people with whom we can share something – tell a funny story that happened to us, or ask for support in difficult times. Why do we so carelessly reveal the details of our lives on the Internet?
Every day we see someone go into detail about their personal life online. Why do adults describe the smallest intimate details in the virtual space, where they are available to hundreds, thousands and even millions of readers? After all, we used to share all this only with our closest friends.
Dr. David R. Brake in his book* lists several reasons why we do this:
1. The illusion of trust
We do not have exact information about how many people can read our messages.
A social network can give us false clues: for example, when it tells us that we post information “for friends only”, we may get the impression that only people who are close to us will see it. However, on average, a Facebook user has 200 “friends”, and this does not mean a warm relationship at all. And if we allow viewing by “friends of friends” – according to statistics, this is done by one in five users – our potential audience instantly increases to tens of thousands of people! Some studies have shown that the average Facebook user believes that 4 times fewer people read it than it actually is.
Read more:
- Vincent Cespedes: “The Internet can make us happier”
2. Illusion of goodwill
We can’t gauge the reaction that our messages evoke. When we talk to a person personally, we can always feel how he reacts. In a telephone conversation, we hear the tone of the interlocutor. On social networks, people can read your messages and remain silent. “I found,” says David Break, “that because people like to write messages and imagine a positive reaction to them, they usually think that the audience treats them well. Even if there are negative responses, they are easily forgotten.”
3. Illusion of fragility
It’s easy to forget how long our “virtual footprint” lasts. The social “colour” of messages changes over time: stupid things written in youth will make us blush many years later – as well as funny photos of a child posted by proud parents, for which teens are often ashamed later. If the audience shows a reaction, then most likely only immediately after the message is posted, and only new entries are visible on social networks. Therefore, it seems that your old records will be forgotten – like an old conversation. However, this is not at all the case: they will “live” in virtuality for a very long time – they are indexed by search engines and stored by social networks themselves, which use them to create user images that are important for advertisers.
4. Interests of corporations
For many large companies, it is important that we “share” – that is, reveal to the public what is happening in our lives. Therefore, we receive a lot of promotional messages every day that encourage us to buy new devices and subscribe to new services, through which we will share information even more actively. Since communication with friends is increasingly supported by such services, people are simply forced to use them so as not to fall out of social life.