On page 51 in The Culture of Connectivity it states, “The principal benefits for users of Facebook are, first, to get and stay connected and, second, to become (well) connected. “Getting in touch” and “Staying in touch” have been the center of social media.
Allowing people to be open and connected with others within their circles is one of Facebook’s goals (Dijck pg 51). People have the ability to friend, message, and like peoples post. Everyone has the ability to speak and be heard. Facebook gives user the ability to express freely.
People stay with Facebook because of its offer for user to have mass self-communication(Dijck, pg51). Its a primer for promoting the self as the center of an extensive network of friends; the notion of “friending” relates to bonds that may also exist in real life, but equally refers to weak ties and latent ties (Dijck, pg 51). Facebook has replaced Friendster, Myspace, and Xanga since it started their operations in 2004 (Dijck pg 57) and now has more users than all of those sites combine.
The main thing that Facebook replaces is the need to use multiple sites at the same time. A great quality about Facebook is that it allows users to video chat, use spotify, and chat within groups all at the same time. Many of these features can be found in Google+, but not maybe people really took a liking to it.
“The meaning of sharing, once understood as user-to-user information exchange, has subtly been replaced by a meaning that naturalizes the sharing of personal data with anyone on the planet” (Dijck, pg 65). Now there is a fine line between public and private information. More people now adays are sharing post that they might of in the past kept private. Also users have the access to a wider audience then they ever have had in the past.
In Shirky’s book, he talks about motivation by instrinsic and extrinsic values. Extrinsics is all about feedback, which users on Facebook have the potential to receive each and every day. Everytime you post something on your wall any of your friends can add an emoji with a reaction, like it, love it, or comment on it.
An example of extrinsic motivation is as follows. One person could have cut their hair and posted a picture on Facebook hoping for postive feedback from friends and family members. By giving that person a thumbs up, or nice hair cut comment, like the post, or even use the heart icon, that would all be good feedback that the owner of the post would like to see.
“Intrinsic motivations are strong enough that they gravitate towards experiences that reward them” (Shirky pg. 93). People tend to feel rewarded when they achieve competency (be good at what they do). Posting on social media, gives people the ability to brag or express things that they are good at. If one gets an award or job acceptance they might feel the need to post about it on Facebook so that their friends can read about it and like it. All over Facebook are amateurs. They are motivated for the love of being connected and talking to others (Shirky pg. 82).
Going full circle it brings us back to the idea of sharing and connectivity. Facebook is available 365 days a year, 24 hours per day for their users to access the different pages and sites they like or are interested in. It also gives people the ability to stay in contact with friends or family members from far away so that everyone is able to see pictures and posts about their lives at the moment things happen. Its an easy way to connect with a large group of people quickly.
Amateurs are not always aware of the consequences of what can happen from things they post. If someone shared how they feel on Facebook, it could have a intrinsic reward but also an extrinsic reward by receieving feedback that is quite negative. Especially with the Trump presidency already, things are posted on social media everyday. They just post about their feelings because they like the idea of being connected and having the freedom to share their opinions hoping that people with agree with them.
