The Psychology of Social Media
Social media and the use of sensory stimuli.
Human behaviour is a function of constantly changing neurochemicals and hormones. The success of social media is contingent on the understanding of that neurochemical system. Learning when, how and what type of stimuli to use to engage the audience is key to maintaining and growing the user base of social media platforms.
People often wonder why we are constantly using our digital devices. According to psychologist Dr. Sherry Turkle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author of “Alone, Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other,” digital devices allow us to satisfy the need of seeking behaviour (Wikiel, 2016). Humans have hunter-gatherer instincts from before the times of sophisticated tools; searching on Google and fetching information is fundamentally similar. Whether it is a deer or the answer to a query, it provides humans with that same basic satisfaction.
Social activity activates a part of our brains called the mesolimbic dopamine pathway, otherwise known as the reward pathway (O’Connor, 2014). This pathway bathes the pleasure centres of our brains with dopamine. In a study led by Dar Meshi, a postdoctoral researcher at the Freie Universität in Berlin who imaged the brains of 31 Facebook users, they found that a region of the brain called the nucleus acumens (which processes rewarding feelings) was more active. This same reaction is found when stimulated by food, sex or money (Szalavitz, 2013). This activation is associated with talking about yourself or getting a notification. Humans just love talking about themselves.
According to Harvard scientists, in normal speech people talk about themselves 30–40% of the time. However, on social media this number jumps to 80%! People enjoy talking about themselves online because it generates the emotional state associated with being a part of something important. It is a deeply sensory experience ― in a way, people get ‘high’ on social activity (O’Connor, 2014).
Stimulating the reward pathway regularly is essential for organisms to perform at their optimum. People need to receive enough stimulation and reward from day to day activities in order to flush our systems with sufficient amounts of pleasure neurochemicals. Without them, we end up with a “reward deficiency” that may lead to depression, anxiety, boredom and poor performance (Ripskis, 2001). Digital devices and social media provide a stream of constant mental stimulation.
The release of dopamine is stimulated by the unpredictable and small bits of information (Seiter, 2014). These are essentially the core characteristics of social media! Just think of Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat. Additionally, when it comes to social media there are diminishing returns; the same amount of effort results in progressively smaller rewards. This is where new content comes in. New content at unpredictable times keeps people engaged. As must social media celebrities know: content is king. It has the same behavioural reinforcement as the Skinner’s box that delivers random amounts of food when the rat presses the lever (McMahon, 2015).
So how does social media use stimuli?
Humans are programmed to respond strongly to visual stimuli. In fact, 64% of people are visual learners. The human mind processes visual content 60,000 times faster than any other type of stimulus (WeRSM, 2015). Visual stimuli (among other strong contenders such as scent) can trigger memories and emotions from the past. Using the right type and combination of sensory stimulus is vital to the success of social media platforms. The success of Instagram, for example, is predicated on the basic understanding of consumer behaviour. People are engaged with images and the vision of nostalgia that Instagram filters provide.
Concentrating on only visual stimuli, while traditional, is limiting. Modern (and future) marketing requires differentiation using new tools to expand and monopolize the mental territory that the brand occupies in the brains of consumers. Marketing attempts to capitalize on this concept as well with sensory marketing ― the stimulation of the senses to be directly related to a brand (Cobos, 2012).
What if you could share what your morning coffee smells like with your friends? Presently, you can send a photo of your coffee, write “Mmm, this tastes so good” and even describe the colour and flavour. But that is the full extent that your experience can be shared with the world. We, as your audience, will never know what the warmth of the ceramic mug feels like or smell exactly what you smell. We cannot taste the coffee that you post about. But what if you could? What if you could share your experience with other people exactly as you experienced it yourself? Stimulating all five senses will make sharing experiences over social networks more thorough, full and exact and, as a result, more profitable.
In this way, the future of social media will become more intimate, immersive and expressive (O’Connor, 2014). People will be able to share not only text and photos, but flood the internet with sensation ― sight, sound, scent, taste, and touch (Apple has tried this with their smartwatch by sharing a heartbeat)― to find novel ways to stimulate our pleasure centers. Utilizing all types of sensory stimuli bridges the gap between the physical and virtual worlds by making the virtual world as tactile and tangible as the real world. The future of social media, where you can share every aspect of an experience from the taste of your food to the smell of the city, is just around the corner.
References
Cobos, H. U. (2012). Sensory Marketing and Branding: The power of the senses. Retrieved January 30, 2016, from http://morethanbranding.com/2012/04/13/sensory-marketing-and-branding-th
McMahon, C. (2015). Why do we ‘like’ social media? Retrieved January 29, 2016, from https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/volume-28/september-2015/why-do-we-social-media
O’Connor, W. T. (2014). Your Brain On Social Media #SMDay. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from http://inside-the-brain.com/2014/06/30/your-brain-on-social-media-smday/
Ripskis, A.L. (2001). Unlock Your Life: Using Breakthrough Discoveries in Brain Science and Psychology. Rockville: Impact Journal Press.
Seiter, C. (2014). 7 Social Media Psychology Studies That’ll Make Your Marketing Smarter. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from https://blog.bufferapp.com/social-media-psychology-studies-smarter-marketing
Szalavitz, M. (2013). This Is Your Brain on Facebook. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from http://healthland.time.com/2013/08/31/this-is-your-brain-on-facebook/
WeRSM. (2015). A New Dawn in Digital: Neuromarketing Meets Social Media. Retrieved January 31, 2016, from http://wersm.com/a-new-dawn-in-digital-neuromarketing-meets-social-media/
Wikiel, Y. (2016). The Psychology of Social Media. Retrieved January 29, 2016, from http://www.realsimple.com/work-life/technology/social-media-psychology
