New habits with the utilization of social media networks
Abstract: The cultural voyeurism has been normalized by the proliferation of Social Media Networks especially in the younger generation. This behavior has increased with the creation of “Story” and “Live” on several social media platforms. Besides voyeurism, terms like exhibitionism and narcissism has been also generalized. In their everyday life, people post photos, videos and share content. It becomes a real need for Internet users to show their life on social media. The aim of this conference paper is to understand why it is now important for people to share their life online, to know about other people’s life and why the new features like “story” and “live” are so successful.
Since ever, humans appreciate to share their life’s experiences with their close relations like family and friends. Whenever they wanted to spread their stories or views on a subject, the word of mouth, newspapers, radios and TV’s were the main streams. Since twenty years new medias like social networks have appeared and the way people communicate and share content have changed. A certain form of voyeurism has taken place in the lifestyle behavior of people. Already with the TV, this culture of voyeurism has grown with the apparition of TV reality shows. These kinds of programs satisfied the voyeurism’s “needs” of people who look at TV (Baruh, 2007). In reality shows, you can see people with their natural behavior and true personality. All their doings and activities are filmed 24h/24h on a certain period of time. Viewers appreciate this because they can identify themselves with candidates in the show (Andrejevic, 2003; Jones, 2003; Mathijs, 2004 quoted in Baruh, 2007). This type of program is based on a sort of realism. It emphasizes on the “see and feel” that a viewer can experience (Deacon et al. cited in Gee, 2015). It raises the curiosity of people to know more about the participants. This voyeurism culture has been popularized with TV reality shows and it has redefined the legal aspect concerning the right to intimacy (Gee, 2015). This culture has been entertained with particular features on social medias. For instance, Snapchat was the first social media platform to propose the “story” feature. It means that the user can post some photos or videos about his activities and his everyday life on his profil. People can film their life like a TV reality show. The contents will be available during 24h and viewers cannot like or comment the post. The advantage on Snapchat for students is that they can post anything they wish and it doesn’t need to be beautiful or interesting because it will disappear after 24H.
People use Instagram mainly to post their best photos, this creates a pressure on themselves as they are not sure that their posts will be appreciated (Seetharaman, 2016). The new devise on Snapchat and now also on Instagram (story) remove a certain pressure on them about what others can think on their posts (Seetharaman, 2017). Instagram has also allowed its 500 million users to post stories. The objective is to seduce users and encourage them to post more and more often. It permits users to post contents that are less striking compared if they were posting the same on their Instagram’s profile (Seetharaman, 2016). Mr. Systrom stated in the article of Deepa Seetharaman in 2016 that if a user posts one content per week on Instagram, the aim on story is to encourage them to post between 5 and 10 contents a day. Facebook has noted that by improving the rapidity of the avaibility of the camera like on Snapchat, it will boost the frequency and quantity of posts. In July 2017 Facebook has created the live streaming. Mark Zukerberg affirms that the principal way of sharing will be by camera (Seetharaman, 2017). All theses improvement are conducted by the new needs of users, in particular the younger generation. A report from Pew Research Center shows that 90% of the 18-29 years old use social medias (Perrin, 2015 cited in Yuchen, 2016). Social medias’ statistics reports that 95% of college students use Facebook and 73% use Instagram (Yuchen, 2016).Young people are more and more impatient. They were born in a period where the technology is well established and all is rapidly available. If someone is looking for information, they will surf on Google; if they want to order a pizza, they will go on Ubereat or if they want to do a bank transfer they will use the application of their bank. These services allow people to gain time and social medias also need to adapt themselves so that their products meet the users’ the practical demands. Social medias users do not always want to interact online with their friends. Viewing the update of the social media of their friends allow them to be abreast of their activities. Nowadays a new behavior is born. It is very frequent that the first thing people do when they wake up is to check their social media and it is often also the last thing which they do before going to sleep (Moreno & Tabita, 2015).
Smartphones have become a utility tool. One always has his smartphone at reach during the day. Carlos, 31 years old said that he often posts something during his free time and shares any interesting post he come across. The objective is to share “live” any interesting picture or video (Moreno & Tabita, 2015). Social Media users publish content because they want to share their personal experience. They can share photos from where they are and reveal their personal feelings (Moreno & Tabita, 2015). Features on social medias platforms are a way to exhibit the users splendid life (Maentymaeki & AKMNajmul, 2016). It can develop a narcissism behavior from the publisher (Mehdizadeh, 2010; Panek et al., 2013; Ryan & Xenos, 2011 cited in Maentymaeki & AKMNajmul, 2016). For the user it is a way to be accepted and recognized on the social network (Maentymaeki & AKMNajmul, 2016). For instance when people travel they need to take photos, share them and communicate with their friends and family. The social media devices have modified the backpacking activity. The phenomenon is so important that a new term is born, it is calls “flashpacking”. It means that travellers take all their time by taking pictures and videos in the objective to post them on their profile (Molz, 2013). This can be interpreted as if it is more important to post something instead of enjoying the moment. With features like stories on Snapchat and Instagram they can post it on the spot. This is possible due to improvements of Internet connections around the world and the easiness of access to connectivity (Molz, 2013). These innovations allow people to be updated with their family/friends’ life without entertaining conversations between them. It can be associated with the term of voyeurism (Mäntymäki & Islam, 2014 cited in Maentymaeki & AKMNajmul, 2016). Moreover the term of social surveillance can be used too (Lampe, Ellison, & Steinfield, 2006; Marwick, 2012; Tokunaga, 2011 cited in Maentymaeki & AKMNajmul, 2016). Besides this, some authors have pointed out that voyeurism and exhibitionism are linked (Calvert, 2009 cited in Maentymaeki & AKMNajmul, 2016). Exhibitionisms enjoy that their followers are looking at them, on their online platforms. Social media users accept that they can be considered like voyeurism people because they look at people without having a conversation. Narcissism derives from exhibitionism (Ames et al., 2006; Brunell, Staats, Barden, & Hupp, 2011; Carpenter, 2012 cited in Maentymaeki & AKMNajmul, 2016). The aim of these people is to exhibit themselves by constructing their perfect self-image. Their objective is to proclaim their excellence and to look for adoration from others in order to boost their self-esteem (Morf & Rhodewalt, 2001 cited in Maentymaeki & AKMNajmul, 2016).
Following friends, bloggers and famous people on social media platforms are now very anchored in our habits (Molz, 2013). This normalization to watch peoples’ lives has promote a kind of voyeurism habits. The success of Facebook and TV reality show demonstrate that people are attentive to others lives (Longo, 2015). Despite this, social media users are more and more keen in posting contents on their profiles. It can be explained by the fact that when a user posts something, which his followers will like or comment, it will boost his dopamine level. It is called the “awarding effects”. This phenomenon can boost an important level of satisfaction and it creates a sort of addiction to social media (Yuchen, 2016). This satisfaction influences the self-esteem of the user. He can assume himself like notable, efficient and successful (Ertuerk, 2016). The “need” to post content on social media can traduce a need to be approved and identified by others. It has been noted that when a student didn’t have enough likes on his Instagram post, he will delete the content (Seetharaman, 2016). Promoting themselves on social networks sites interests people and it can also generate a tendency to narcissism. This kind of people utilizes social medias’ platforms to show them in a better way than in reality (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008; Mehdizadeh, 2010 cited in Yuchen, 2016). Some researches show that allocated time on social networks like Facebook influences people to focus more on themselves and at the same time raises their level of narcissism (Twenge, 2013). Some studies have shown that depending of how many likes and comments people have under their posts, it can affect on how they distinguish their own self. A person who amplifies his potential and value can be characterized as a narcissistic person. However their self-esteem is poor. They wait for likes and favorable comments on themself and obviously they don’t accept critics. They are very attentive about their own profile by renewing it very often and share a lot of their activities especially selfies (Ertuerk, 2016). “Selfie” come from “self” and Oxford University defines this action by people who shares his/her own photographs with the world on social media networks. Researchers point out that 35% people take selfies to remind a joyful moment, 34% to remember a cool activity, 14% when the hair of the person is good looking and 13% when the person feel self-assured (DifficuLty, 2014 cited in Ertuerk, 2016).
To conclude, it becomes a habit to post our life on social networks especially for the younger generation. The creation of “stories” and “live” has fostered this practice in their everyday life. When users travel, see an interesting thing and go to parties for instance they will post some photos and video on their “stories” and “live” to show what they are doing. This kind of post is relaxed for users because viewers cannot like the content. It has increased the voyeurism effect among users. Besides this the habits to post content on their profile is still very successful and this tends to increase the narcissisms trait of users. On social media people want to show them in their best level to boost their self-esteem. Taking selfies has become a kind of international sport. To find a place in society, people think that they need to show them in a certain way. On social networks they deal with reality by editing photos and take it in a certain angle to beautify the reality. When users publish content on their profile they will pay attention to details because they want to have a lot of likes and positive comments to boost their self-esteem.
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Hi Zelia, I really found your paper interesting. You wrote about a lot of important things in society that are not really noticed or seen as something that is becoming increasing serious. While reading through your paper, I remembered I once watched an interesting video on BBC about how smartphones are designed to keep us hooked, and one of the things they mentioned was social media. They said that we have become so obsessed with posting and checking for new posts because of ‘FOMO’ (fear of missing out). I thought this was quite interesting because, unconsciously, it is true. I also like how you mentioned that more and more people are finding it more important to take pictures to post them than it is to just live in the moment. I have noticed that a lot around me and it’s actually quite sad. You covered some very interesting and thought-provoking points that I have also noticed and thought about, so I enjoyed reading your paper.
Thank you Tikvah,
Yes I tried to demonstrate how our behaviours have changed with the emergence of social media and how theses applications push us to use them more often in our daily life. How the notion of voyeurism and exhibitionist have become normal in our everyday life. Theses social media networks encourage us to become more superficial.
Hi Zelia,
Thanks so replying. I have one other question to ask you:
Do you think it is a good thing that social media has become something normal in our everyday lives? Because I feel that it sometimes has actually become a bit of a bad habit, especially because it encourages to sometimes be more superficial.
Hi Tikvah thank you for your question.
Personally I don’t know if its normal or not, however social media has been introduce to us years ago and very rapidly we found its utility. Nowadays it takes a lot of place in our life and its has good and negative aspects for sure. Merely it is very natural for us to use them during all the day and anywhere. The problem its when the user become antisocial and don’t care with the real world. When the link is broken between the real and the virtual. Also more and more of users, especially in the new generation use social media to spread their identity online. So they modified the reality and build up and virtual identity and this tends to become more superficial and care about the opinions of others on us for sure.
Hi Zelia,
Thanks for your response. Okay, quite an interesting insight. I agree with you on those points.