Why are social networks so addictive?

Judy Gombita kindly shared the following link from LinkedIn that posed the great question: 'What makes social networking so addictive?'

The answer is seems can be summarized as follows (in no particular order):

1. Collecting contacts is like collecting stamps, comic books, or anything else, it's a hobby. The more you have the happier you feel. (really!?)
2. We are social beings: we use technology to amplify or simulate social contact. Humans crave visibility and acceptance from others.
3. It's quicker to network on line: leaving your home/office is old school. Why risk catching a cold when you can make new contacts the easy way.
4. Expanding your sphere of influence: Social Networking tends to fullfill a desire for influence and approval by allowing individuals to monitor and increase their influence within their peer groups.
5. Reconnecting with old contacts: it's a great way of finding former colleagues and contacts you have lost touch with.
6. Connecting with like-minded people anywhere in the world: it really does make geography a little irrelevant when you can talk shop with someone you'll never meet in a country you can't find on a map.
7. And lastly, because it's fun. Why else would I still be writing this gone 8.30pm? (Don't answer that).

Robin.

Comments

[Judy Gombita]

I see there are a couple of more responses, since I first sent you the LinkedIn..ummm, link...so the question has obviously resonated with that social networking community (plus you).

Speaking of which, I think it is important to put the question into context, Robin, by indicating who asked the question on LinkedIn…because it’s part of the reason *I* checked it out, having recognized the name of the author.

Will Pate was one of the guest panelists at the recent mesh07 conference—perhaps my very favourite panel session, “Building a Community: How and Why it Matters.” It was standing-room only (well, some folks were sitting on the floor), and all three of the panelists were excellent. The session was moderated by Mark Relph, who is vice president of the developer and platform group in Canada, Microsoft Canada. Besides Will there was Jordan Banks, who is managing director of eBay Canada (and whom I happen to know in another capacity), rounded out by Lionel Menchaca (“14-year Dell veteran and chief blogger at Direct2Dell. He also helps to coordinate other Dell digital media properties - like the Dell Community Forum, IdeaStorm and StudioDell - across the company”).

In particular, I was absolutely blown away by the thoughtfulness and articulation, commitment and passion, demonstrated by Lionel in making use of social media to help to rebuild customer trust, loyalty and a new sense of community at Dell. (Something else he made abundantly clear is that Michael Dell is 100 per cent behind these initiatives…Dell propelled them forward faster than the blogging team probably would have done on its own.)

Anyhow, it was Will who used LinkedIn to ask the question, so I thought readers might be interested in knowing his background (as per his mesh bio):

Will Pate is the beloved co-host of commandN (http://commandn.typepad.com/), part-time community ambassador for Flock (http://www.flock.com/), co-founder of Raincity Studios (http://www.raincitystudios.com/) and was recently recruited by the TorCamp community to return to Toronto. His latest project has him trying to figure out how to use social software to prevent and manage infectious disease outbreaks in Africa. In his copious spare time between flights he takes photos and works on other cool projects that are still baking until golden brown. He sleeps on Sundays and wants to be your friend.”

Ergo, you can see why he would be interested in getting responses from LinkedIn community members.

[Victoria Mellor]

Social networks may be addictive, but not, it seems, to the average CEO. While communicators froth at the mouth at what the virtual world offers, CEOs on the other hand are decidedly underwhelmed. We know this because we’ve done in-depth interviews with 18 ceos – most of whom indicated that social media wasn’t top of their list. Is this a case of communicators getting caught up with another exciting channel and losing sight of the message?

(These are the early findings from our project that asks leading CEOs on both side of pond what they want from internal communication, I’m building up to a blog post once we’ve written up more, so watch this space)

Victoria Mellor

[Judy Gombita]

That project sounds very interesting (and timely, from a planning perspective), Victoria. During his mesh "keynote conversation," even blog/social media enthusiast, Richard Edelman, admitted that the success rate of C-level bloggers is modest: “CEO blogging is a thin space so far.” He suggested that time, skill and risk issues generally account for the lack of take-up.