The Psychology of Facebook

in Uncategorized
April 5th, 2011


Psych Central’s April Fool’s Day Joke for 2011 was an article that read: “Facebook Revealed to be Psychology Experiment Gone Wrong.” The author used a fake source of Harvard University and several quotes from ‘professor of psychology’ Mark Zuckerberg. This article seemed pretty believable…for about a day.

null

The researchers behind this project claimed to be interested in “whether or not people in the class would immediately become competitive and try and gain as many friends as possible.” And though this research experiment is far from the truth, the psychological implications of Facebook are certainly a reality.

Rishi Bandopadhay of PsyBlog equated Facebook networking to a competitive sport. He listed 7 rules to ‘get ahead’ using Facebook.

  1. Get between 100 and 300 friends. (You don’t want to look like a loner, or like you are trying too hard)
  2. Court attractive friends (Walther et al. (2008) found that attractive friends boosted the perceived attractiveness of participant’s profiles)
  3. Understand the 7 motivations (Joinson (2008) found 7 basic motivations for using Facebook: connecting with old or distant friends, social surveillance (see what old friends are up to, but without talking to them), looking up people met offline, virtual people watching, status updating and content)
  4. Don’t let your partner use Facebook (Muise et al. (2009) found that the more time spent on Facebook, the more jealousy)
  5. Guard your privacy
  6. Display your real self
  7. Use Facebook to get a job

Is Facebook really this competitive? I can’t remember the last time I noted how many Facebook friends someone had or judged their popularity by their friends’ good looks. Facebook can also tell you a lot about someone’s personality.

Buffardi and Campbell of the University of Georgia found that individuals’ level of activity on their social networking website is strongly correlated to their level of narcissism; this finding is relatively obvious. It’s easy to see which friends of ours, whose ‘activities’ constantly show up on our newsfeed, are self-centered.

null

Next Orr, Sisic, Ross, Simmering, and Arseneault set out to study correlations of shyness to various aspects of social networking websites. They found that shy people spend considerably more time on Facebook than people who are not; however, these shy people also had considerably fewer friends, despite their increased time spent on Facebook. So the quiet kid who sits in the back of your Statistics class has probably Facebook stalked you, but you’ll never be receiving a friend request because that person does not have the guts to hit “Send Request.”

Psych Central– Facebook Revealed to be a Psychology Experiment Gone Wrong
PsyBlog– Facebook: 7 Highly Effective Habits
The Layman’s Guide to Psychology– The Psychology of Twitter, Facebook, and other Social Networking Devices

Tagged , , ,

8 Comments on The Psychology of Facebook

  • I was read that Facebook is a social experiement funded by some very rich guy, can’t remember who now who had varies fingers in similar pies. He wanted to see if people became sheep like. One thing I know for sure is, all these clever people at FB have written a useless application that constantly fails to do what you want, they constantly update the interface moving things around confusing the user…..but…..We still continue to use it, being toyed with on a daily basis by the FB team….

  • These blogs should have more comments. Really great info…Will dig deeper when I have the time

  • Hii fella, I do think your site is realy superb! Maybe you could very well provide me an advice, since I have constantly want to begin a website of my own. Well in case you got just about any time hit me up, here’s my own email adres: Lanno25003@gmail.com thank you so much! Regard

  • Come speak to me and see what resources I have to offer for small business’s. Thank you

  • Pretty section of content. I just stumbled upon your blog and in accession capital to assert that I acquire in fact enjoyed account your blog posts. Anyway I’ll be subscribing to your augment and even I achievement you access consistently fast.

  • Great post at The Psychology of Facebook | the nerve blog. I was checking constantly this blog and I’m impressed! Extremely helpful information specifically the last part :) I care for such information much. I was seeking this certain information for a very long time. Thank you and good luck.

  • The Psychology of Facebook | the nerve blog Very nice post. I just stumbled upon your weblog and wanted to say that I’ve truly enjoyed surfing around your blog posts. After all I will be subscribing to your rss feed and I hope you write again soon!

  • Since the admin of this web site is working, no uncertainty very soon it will be renowned,
    due to its quality contents.

Post Your Comment