Are dog parks the “real life” social media?
I don’t need to tell you that social media is a phenomenon of the 21st century, but there’s another trend on the rise that you may be less aware of.
Who would have thought that dog parks jumped 89% since 2007 according to The Trust for Public Land? That statistic correlates with the increase of social media use in adults that sky-rocketed from 8% in 2005 to 72% in 2013, according to the Pew Research Center for Internet and Technology.
However, the rapid increase isn’t the only thing they have in common. Horsetooth dog park and your Facebook feed are similar to one another because they both created a space for people to connect, are a community, and have external personified representations of the “users.”
Why have both social media usage and dog parks increased so much? Could it be that we are just adapting human social rituals?
David Landis of Landis Communications Inc. first compared the dog park to the Italian ritual of the passeggiata, or a walk around the piazza, where neighbors would commune and socialize after the work day.
By taking your beloved furry friend out for some fun, you have entered into an old Italian tradition as well as a futuristic digital community.
According to Landis, the dog park and the passeggiata are comparable to the social networks of Facebook and MySpace because they bring us together, with the exception that social media is all virtual.
What’s the difference between the online community and the “real world” community of dog parks? According to Dr. Michael Humphrey of Forbes, nothing.
Communities vary from culture to subculture; however, Humphrey believes it is not fair for one community to decide whether another is “real” or not.
“The influencing trick (of the mind) is the notion that community is something stable that we can objectively define,” said Humphrey.
If community cannot be defined, it cannot be constrained to one world, whether virtual or real.
Just like at the dog park, one can friend another on Facebook. Just like at the dog park, one can be part of an online community without being an active member. Just like at the dog park, one has an avatar to express his or her personality.
What is an avatar, and how can you have one at a dog park?
An avatar is, simply put, a cartoon that personifies the internet user it is based on. At the dog park, the person’s avatar is their dog.
According to Psychology Today, people tend to choose dogs with personality traits that are similar to their own. (Sometimes they even look alike, like my sister and her dog.)
While dog owners rated themselves as having similar personality traits, “the strongest association was between the owner’s degree of neuroticism and that of their dog, followed by extraversion,” said Dr. Stanley Coren.
This means when little Fido is running around the park, he’s exemplifying his owner without him or her needing to put themselves out there socially. Other dog parents may notice how friendly a dog is and want to engage in a conversation with the owner. However, a quiet and shy pup may give other dog owners a reluctance when approaching that dog’s person.
According to a study done by the Society of Personality and Social Psychology, avatars affect whether people want to engage with others online.
“But profiles and avatars aren’t a true representation of a person!”
Some argue that you can’t gauge anything real from a snapshot of a person.
According to a writer for HelloBeautiful, “these profiles can be dangerous to budding relationships” if there is no one-on-one interfacing.
I disagree. In the SPSP study, it was shown that avatars do personify the creator and viewers can determine personality traits from the cartoon, or dog.
“The study does show that avatars can offer accurate information about the creator’s personality, and individuals high in agreeableness tend to create an avatar that others want to befriend — not unlike the real-world,” said Annie Drinkard.
What does this all mean?
Dog parks are a social media of their own that have similarities to that of Facebook and Twitter. This niche network allows dog owners to interact with other people, to form relationships, and connect in a physical, tangible space.
The daily ritual of the passeggiata has been reborn in the 21st Century as a virtual hangout. If our dogs are the avatars and we are the users, then the dog park must be the social network: a community of people who have something in common, their dogs.
