People are sharing less on Facebook, and here’s what Facebook can do about it

Conflicted about whether you should post something on Facebook? You’re not alone. A Fortune article in April revealed a staggering 21% decline in personal sharing (original posts) on the 1.6 billion people platform. When you consider how public your wall is today, the numbers are actually not so surprising.

To understand how people can share more, it’s perhaps time to dig a bit into the psychology behind “wall posting”.

The Psychology behind “Wall Posting”

In 2005, when I first joined Facebook, it was actually acceptable to have entire personal conversations between your friend’s wall and your own. My wall from 2005 read something like “Jennnnnnn!!! It was great to see you today, what are your plans Friday? Let’s hangggg out!!! xoxoxo”

Yes, imagine a comment like that today. The was even a little ticker on top of the comment box that counted the number of total comments ever received on your wall, which was an entirely unspoken, yet completely acknowledged fact that that it correlated with one’s social popularity.

However, as time went on, and we grew our Facebook friends from the low hundreds to the near thousand, it started feeling strange to write “hey love, what are your plans this afternoon?”, and have that show up in the newsfeed of hundreds of friends, who frankly, did not give a sh*t about your plans with your friend. Personal wall conversations started to become a nuisance for others. It suddenly became so not okay to brag about your plans Friday evening. So we stopped.

At this point, Facebook got very lucky, because something interesting happened — people started posting about themselves. The social norm, for the first time ever on Facebook, changed. I can’t imagine being the first one to think that this was a bit strange — who would be so narcissistic as to post on one’s own wall? But yet, we (or Facebook) found an excuse for us — since we had so many friends in today’s digital world, it was the easiest way to share information with everyone at once. And Facebook promptly jumped on this, naming it “status updates”.

But Facebook forgot one very important thing — that social norms would change, yet again. And this time, they wouldn’t be so lucky.

As the number of friends grew further, and the role of Facebook in our society solidified, digital omnipresence actually became the very source of Facebook’s problems.

People no longer feel that comfortable sharing to a world so wide, because every comment made, photo posted, place checked-in, would be judged by thousands of eyes within seconds. There was something heart-stopping (in a bad way) about the possibility that among your thousand-something friends, too few would like, comment, or care.

The Problem is Not the Need for Privacy…

Privacy appears to be the natural solution for this problem, but it’s not.

Path, a social network that limits your interactions to 150 people, is perhaps the best illustration of why this is not the case. The app died as quickly as it gained traction because of one simple reason: we actually still want to share our updates with more than a close group of people.

…but the Fear of Judgment.

We want to post and share with the world, but we don’t want to feel that we are being judged by what we post. We want to tell our friends how our weekend was, but we’re afraid that the information we post is not “interesting” enough to garner enough reactions.

In fact, it’s not even because we necessarily care, but because the number of likes and comments influences how our friends and acquaintances view us.

So instead, we just don’t post.

Facebook is becoming less relevant for the individual

Facebook thought it would engage users more if it started providing notifications from groups and subgroups, but it did just the opposite. Receiving 10 notifications a day from users I don’t interact with made me stop reading them. At the same time, due to the influx of professional content, I was missing all the important updates that were actually relevant for me.

The Solution: Networks within a Network

Now I’m going to tell you something that may sound a bit crazy, but just bear with me for a second.

Imagine, a “networks within a network” system whereby the total number of likes and comments can only be seen by the user him/herself. Friends, on the other hand, will be able to see only the likes and comments of people they are also friends with.

For example, friends from high school will see your post, but will only see likes and comments by mutual friends (other high school friends). Presumably, they only see relevant posts by people they also know (the high school crowd). The interactions remain contained within this group, and is not shown to others. You, however, can have multiple conversations with everyone at the same time. Simply @mention a user to reply specifically to them (and appear for those with mutual friends), and comment broadly without mentions, for it to appear for everyone.

On a post that is unrelated to your high school friends, these friends may see zero likes or comments, but can assume (or not assume) that you’re interacting with other friends (whom they simply don’t know), and those interactions are just hidden from them.

There are four main benefits to this functionality for users:

1. It immediately takes the pressure off of status updates, because nobody can reliably see or predict the total likes or interactions received.
2. This filters conversations that are the most relevant for the individual. Since content would be much more limited in this “networks within a network” system, the individual user would receive much less updates, and more relevant ones.
3. Conversations that show up on Facebook remain relevant for each person, so you’re free to comment and write without fear of being too public or irrelevant (and a nuisance) for other users. While you may feel sad that you can’t stalk people you’re not actually friends with, realize that a truly private conversation between the two of them would not be written publicly anyway.
4. The platform feels more intimate and better mimics social circles in real life in which conversations remain within private social circles, all the while allowing for one post to reach all friends at the same time.

The Execution: An Opt-In Functionality

An idea is nothing without execution.

The idea above is actually borrowed from China’s latest social media giant, the WeChat platform. “Networks within a network” works extremely well in Asia, because there, social circles are generally more tight-knit, and people would never feel comfortable decimating private photos to the world like we do in the West on Facebook.

Before we consider this solution, we must of course consider the drawbacks, especially in the context of Western cultures.

The biggest drawback (besides being able to stalk conversations between a friend and their friend whom you’re not friends with —though perhaps this is the privacy we are looking for afterall), are for those people who actually want to reveal total likes and comments (because maybe they are quite popular, or are celebrities, for example). For this subgroup, comments and likes may be the purpose they post on Facebook, and without being able to reveal them, Facebook would be useless.

In this case, it’s best for Facebook to have an opt-in functionality that would display such a status on a user’s wall when the user has chosen to opt-in. The functionality could also be toggled for each post.

TL;DR SUMMARY

Facebook original posting (personal updates) is declining at a 21% rate, and the platform needs to do something about it or risk losing relevancy. This article argues that instead of the lack of privacy, what users fear more is having private information judged on an extremely large and public platform.

The solution is a “networks within a network” system whereby the total number of likes and comments can only be seen by the user him/herself. Friends, on the other hand, will be able to see only the likes and comments of people they are also friends with.

For example, friends from high school will see your post, but will only see likes and comments by mutual friends (other high school friends). Presumably, they only see relevant posts by people they also know (the high school crowd). The interactions remain contained within this group, and is not shown to others. You, however, can have multiple conversations with everyone at the same time. Simply @mention a user to reply specifically to them (and appear for those with mutual friends), and comment broadly without mentions, for it to appear for everyone.

This immediately takes the pressure off of status updates, because nobody will actually see how many total likes or interactions a user receives. The platform feels more intimate and better mimics social circles in real life in which conversations remain within social circles, all the while allowing for one post to reach all friends at the same time. Finally, users are free to post and comment without feeling their post to be too public or irrelevant for others.

The execution of this idea is critical, because some (arguably popular) users may not be content in having their likes and comments hidden. In this case, it’s best for Facebook to have an opt-in functionality that would display such a status on a user’s wall when the user has chosen to opt-in. The functionality could also be toggled for each post.