Psychology of facebook

Presented to the Santa Barbara Institute
for Consciousness Studies

Anthropology:   I’m going to start with what I know about anthropology, which isn’t much but I feel it’s relevant. In my view, facebook is a fairly tame and nontoxic community – unlike others I’ve been in (such as high school, workplaces, dinner tables, neighborhoods, yahoo chat rooms). Without a constitution or written protocol, congeniality prevails. I think this says something about human nature.  Social networks are tuned to the way we are wired.  Like taking the first step out of a cave and into a larger community where there’s no anonymity – it’s best not to offend anyone. Privacy is a recent development. Tribal villages are more typical of human existence. Just look at the indigenous people of the Amazon. They live in circular settlements with one wall surrounding the perimeter, but no walls on the inside. They’re never alone and everyone can see what everyone else is doing. It pays to be on-guard and congenial otherwise you risk offending others and being banished from the tribe. In the Amazon, that means certain death. I believe that’s where the fear of abandonment comes from. I’m not talking about some trendy catch-phrase from pop psychology. It’s built into our constitution because it was essential for our survival. The threat of death-by-banishment is no longer real but the feelings certainly are. So, on facebook ..we tread carefully.

Behavioral science:   Psychologists have known for a long time now that there are few things more rewarding in life than validation from our peers. It beats television and ice cream and it’s the motivation underlying most communication. That’s why Twitter is so widely popular. Without let-up, it provides a constant stream of validation for every thought that crosses our brain.

“Still your mind and you will not age as fast as people whose minds are constantly struggling to hold their personalities together.” 

This is a Buddhist recommendation aimed at countering a very active function of the human ego:  impression management.   We put a lot of effort into presenting the right ‘persona’ .. or the way we want others to see and remember us. There’s nothing spontaneous going on there. The messages we broadcast are anxiously crafted to make us look the way we want to be perceived. Don’t believe me ..? Look no further than politicians approaching an election year. Newt Gingrich recently found religion because it sends the right message to Christian conservatives. Mitt Romney has ‘reinvented’ himself to look stupid and appeal to the average voter. What people choose to share on facebook in no way presents the whole picture. It’s not our nature.