Social media: A silent killer of innovation
Maplin, Toys R Us, HMV, Blockbusters, Kodak, Nokia’s burning platform. They stuck to what they knew and played it safe- ‘It ain’t broke, so why fix it?’. They continued to develop the right product but as the world changed, and their product didn’t, they found that eventually customers didn’t want it anymore. Doing so cost them. Which raises the question: What might have been the real reasons behind their nervousness to embrace change?
The theory that social media is a silent killer of innovation came about whilst working for a fashion company. When researching their customer we asked, ‘What is the biggest fear amongst twenty to thirty year old men and women?’ Was it drowning? Being hit by a car? Being murdered? No, it was FOMO: The Fear Of Missing Out. A term invented on the internet via social media.
FOMO /ˈfəʊməʊ/ noun informal: Anxiety (fear) that an exciting or interesting event may currently be happening elsewhere, often aroused by posts seen on a social media website.
Key themes in relation to the negative consequences of FOMO include negative self-image, disconnection and jealousy. And there’s a link between higher social media usage and depression/anxiety.
Psychology Today states, ‘Fear is a vital response to physical and emotional danger — if we didn’t feel it, we couldn’t protect ourselves from legitimate threats. But often we fear situations that are far from life-or-death, and thus hang back for no good reason.’
Hang back for no good reason? Isn’t that the same as ‘sticking to what you know’ or ‘playing it safe’?
Fear, and the fight-or-flight response have been around forever. However, if early humans missed out on information and, as a result, were rejected by their fellow tribes people, they would be alone. Properly alone and likely to die. It was then humans developed a paralysing fear of being disliked.
Now things are different. We are not going to die if we miss out, but our caveman programming tells us it’ll be bad if we do. Social media feeds this paranoia. To quote the Eagles song Hotel California, ‘you can check-out anytime you like, but you can never leave!’. By our own device, social media is inadvertently increasing our anxiety and, in turn, reducing our willingness to take (calculated) risks.
It has highs of course. It enables people to share information more easily, with almost anyone. We feel part of something, like we belong. We feel connected to our friend’s baby or what they are about to eat. Almost overnight, in evolutionary terms at least, our small tribes have become one single, big tribe, and we still feel a need to be part of it.
On Instagram alone, the average number of followers for an account is approximately eight hundred and forty (nearly six times Dunbar’s number which states a person is only able to maintain a stable relationship with one-hundred and fifty people). That’s a lot of eyes, or perceived eyes, on you and everything you post. Moreover, with brands and other people vying for space in your feed, there are more sources than ever to take influence from. Influence from, or comparison to, the not so honest, carefully manicured world where ‘everything is awesome!’
If individuals are constantly in the state of comparing and worrying they aren’t good enough, it’s only natural confidence subsides and fear increases.
And fear escalates…
When organisations are in a state of fear and communicate that failure is not an option, they trigger an invisible cost; a psychological reaction which restricts employee thinking, reduces the possibility of innovating, and ultimately fuels the proliferation of more mistakes.
And why is it that innovation and embracing change is so important? Because, like the list at the start of this article, companies that don’t disrupt will (eventually) be disrupted.
What can companies do to promote an innovation mindset, take a step into the unknown, leave the hotel and explore?
Eric Ries says, ‘A successful innovation strategy has to be genuine. People need to believe in it and be accountable for it.’ For that to happen leaders need to embrace change and live Agile techniques — ‘Test and learn. Failing fast is a good thing. Making a mistake (as long as there is a lesson from it) is okay’. Where this approach is promoted, accountable people aren’t so fearful to push against boundaries (or FOMO) and will gain confidence. A negative cycle is then changed into a positive feedback loop that creates a vibrant company culture of growth and development.
It’s easier said than done though. How does a person or a business learn to fight rather than take flight? Elon Musk’s secret sauce suggests ‘to remove one’s fear just lose respect for it’. Okay but, company leader or otherwise, how does a person do that? There is a ton of research on the subject, but here are a few tips:
- Don’t try to be perfect, even though social media suggests that it’s possible.
- Challenge catastrophic thinking. Take a breath, don’t try to solve the puzzle in one go. What’s the smallest, not-so-scary thing you can do? Each step will build confidence.
- Try lots of new stuff to expand minds/portfolios/eco-systems. If we don’t, we’ll stand still, get bored and become obsolete. Plus, if one thing doesn’t work out, the impact is less — you have other approaches that can still bear fruit.
- Wherever possible, have some fun! Even if it’s before the scary event, it’ll certainly take the edge off. “Stay hungry. Stay foolish’ — Steve Jobs.
It all sounds simple enough, so why aren’t we all, as individuals or companies, just doing it?
The answer is that deep down we are still cave people. We can’t avoid worry and social media is exacerbating it. Our fear is being fed and in turn our confidence reduced, subconsciously or otherwise, by our social media habits.
That is why social media is killing innovation. We are addicted to it; which has knock on effects. We love stuff which makes us feel safe and comforted. We don’t like the opposite. Our caveman Social Survival Mammoths, part of the chimp paradox or fast or slow thinking, are difficult to control and the adrenalin released is uncomfortable, sometimes paralysingly so. Unlike in caveman times though, this reaction isn’t required for survival anymore, but we haven’t evolved to tell the difference between a real threat or perceived threat. And social media is a constant, addictive drip of perceived threats. Therefore, as empowering as it may appear to be, it’s important to be aware of its effects on our primal instincts.
The conclusion or a solution?
Having said all the above, there’s a vicious circle to acknowledge. Grrr…
Businesses (and individuals) need confidence to get over fears but getting over fears gives confidence.
Sadly, there’s no magic wand to break that circle. A useful technique to chip away at it though is experimentation. Using measured experiments — or, in Agile Methodology speak, iteratively developing — individuals, teams and in turn businesses can push through fear. It just takes that first experiment. To boost confidence we have to be brave, embrace change, be a (positive) disruptor and ‘Feel the fear and do it anyway’ (there’s a reason that book has sold millions!). Innovation and growth only happen by taking a step into the unknown. Individually, it’s about getting comfortable with adrenalin (in your body’s case it’s preparing it to do better — hence the ability to run away much faster than you think you could) and that ‘failure is okay, it just means you’ve learnt a way not to do something’.
Or put another way, the cure to FOMO is YOLO! (LOL).
Oh and, as a personal experiment, maybe we need to be more mindful of our Social usage and take breathers, just to see what happens. How hard can it be, right?
If you’d like to see ways we’ve helped companies and could help yours, take a look at our site: Fluxx.uk.com (subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of the homepage)
Adam Slawson is Lead consultant at Fluxx, a company that uses experiments to understand customers, helping clients to build better products. We work with organisations such as Atkins, National Grid, the Parliamentary Digital Service and the Royal Society of Arts. Email me if you’d like to know more.
If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy “7 things kickboxing taught me about innovation”, “Six behavioural flaws that make us stupid around money” and “13 things we learned while designing a more democratic Houses of Parliament.” We also sometimes write articles without a number in the headline.
