Found a fantastic HARVARD U article stating that ‘disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding‘ – too hard to read, since it takes it all the way to the monetary value of it -BRILLIANT? Weird! Anyway. It makes me think of self-glorification, self-exposure, and other self-s that are being amplified in the current world, aided by all kinds of social and human platforms on the internet.
As a contextual start, here’s an interesting statistic for you: 10% of all pictures taken, ever, were taken in the last 12 months!! Wow. Think about that for a minute. Talk about the world turning more visual. And the role that technology plays in this. Today, every one of us has multiple cameras of sorts, whether a real (one piece, one function) camera, a camera on a phone, on an ipad, integrated in a computer, you name it.
When it comes down to sharing whatever one took with that device, ample options have put their hand up in the last year: pinterest, keek, instagram, etc…and of course there still is facebook; let’s not forget that. Platforms for photo-sharing are mushrooming like no tomorrow.
Here’s a great example of the ‘explosion of ego-focus’. Just flip through Instagram. Without having statistics, it seems to me that 60% of pictures taken and shared are from the owners themselves …
Look how great I look in this outfit…
Look at what a bad-ass party animal I am…
Look at me and my girl-friend(s)…
Look at me on this fab holiday…
Look at me feeding my fish…
and on and on and on it goes…
So, it’s not just people “expressing” themselves. It’s actually people “showing themselves”, in order to get appreciation, recognition, status.
Who doesn’t want to be popular? Nowadays social platforms have given everyone a perfect access point to become exactly that. Platforms for self-glorification. Platforms where everyone is an artist, a photographer, an author, a singer, a political activist, you name it. Who will check?
Fuel on this system is the other side of the mirror/photograph: voyeurism. We all want to watch and judge other people. We like peaking into one’s garbage bag to see how one lives -so to speak. What do you do when you want to know someone? GOOGLE! That’s right! And so, the circle is round. More self-glorification, rewarded by…everyone else.
This same Harvard states that social exposure actually works like a drug -literally: “Self-disclosure was strongly associated with increased activation in brain regions that form the dopamine system” (source: http://wjh.harvard.edu/~dtamir/Tamir-PNAS-2012.pdf)
For brands, this poses tremendous opportunity. If you find a way to put people (and their “self”) in the spotlight and amplify that “self”, you’ll get a whole lotta love back. Let your facebook page shine, draw consumers into your brand world, let you fans blend and merge with your brand image, and you all win-win.
But hey, on a lighter, and more personal note : I’m as guilty as the next guy 😉 😉
Stay tuned for more, and have a look at the other 100+ articles on this blog,
Thanks for stopping by and reading this article! Let me know what you think – here, on twitter (@kurtfrenier), on facebook, or on LinkedIn. Kurt.
