The Psychology of Facebook Examined

jg21 writes "In this analysis of the psychology of Facebook, a British FB user makes some telling points about how simple the reasons behind its success are. Among them, fear of 'online social failure' features prominently. From the article: 'Facebook also digs away at the insecurities in people...your peers can see your profile on Facebook, and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number, confirming your worst fears about the low opinion they have probably held of you over all those years etc.'"

Executive Summary

[eldavojohn (898314)]

So I think the only thing worth mentioning from this article is something that's obvious to the youth but apparently not so obvious to the older crowd--that younger people today use social networking sites (like Facebook) as a kind of status symbol.

That's about it.

Now, the author could go on to discuss the quality of those friends or some deeper psychological impact that this has on youth today (you know, like the title might lead you to believe). But, unfortunately, the second part reads more like an ad for Facebook than even an objective quantifiable analysis at what makes it better than other sites. I enjoyed this gem:

FR looks AWFUL. Not in a vile MySpace way, but in a "My first attempt at HTML" way. Facebook is slick and so 2007. Friends Reunited is clunky and basic, so 1997. There is no way any self-respecting net user is going to evangelise about FR.

So you claim that the looks are disgusting but not bad like MySpace (which is possibly the most successful social site so far) but bad like "My first attempt at HMTL" ... like all the customized pages on MySpace? I'm so confused, if you're going to knock them for bad looks, don't compare them to the top dog. Obviously looks don't make or break a social networking site. In fact, I would wager that marketing (movies have their own MySpace pages now, what?) has much more to do with it than usability or functionality.

Well, that sounds pretty opinionated and also very unhelpful. After reading this article selling Facebook, I feel like I need to use Facebook for social networking but I don't even know why ...

They also criticize ad placement in Facebook with a graphic that reads: "Facebook Ads! Yuck!" while on their site I notice a top banner, a left hand 'ads by Google' and also Advertisement boxes on the right. Um, you probably want to lay off the way that Facebook earns their income, especially when A) you say they're great for being 'free' and B) the site you publish on is using the same method.

So, a borderline Slashvertisement that is hilariously hypocritical and undertakes a psychological analysis of users on a social networking site without doing any surveys or real research that is often necessary to be able to say anything about your 'psychological studies' since any assumptions in the field can be as crazy as Sigmund Freud's Penis Envy Complex [wikipedia.org].

In this analysis of the psychology of Facebook, a British FB user makes some telling points about how simple the reasons behind its success are.

No, no it does not. It is not an 'analysis' even by the loosest sense of the word & it certainly does nothing more than bash sites I've never heard about and avoid tackling the biggest obstacles for Facebook (MySpace and the zombie-back-from-the-grave-Friendster). Things must be awfully different between here and England for this to be frontpaged on Slashdot.

I'm going to go ahead and give this article an F and ask for the last ten minutes of my life back.

Re:Executive Summary

[Dancindan84 (1056246)]

See, that's why you should be like everyone else and not RTFA.

Re:

[GizmoToy (450886)]

I didn't get the disdain for the ads, either. The site is not charging its users, so something has to pay the bills. If there's no membership fee, it's got to come from advertising. I don't see the big deal there.

Re:

[ducomputergeek (595742)]

Frankly I didn't know anything about facebook other than the name until a couple weeks ago until an old college buddy and I were IMing. He was chatting about some of the old faces and names from our graduating class including some of my ex-college flings, etc. I poked around for 5 minutes on a lark, found it to be a nigh bit frustrating on getting access to groups, etc. and said the hell with it.

But my friend kept going on and on and on about who was on it, what they were doing, John Smith is now a Lawyer

Re:Executive Summary

[cayenne8 (626475)]

"But my friend kept going on and on and on about who was on it, what they were doing, John Smith is now a Lawyer, Jane Doe is getting her MD, Bob married Suzie, etc.. Seemed like most of the folks on there wanted to brag about something. Whether it was family and how happy they were, or look at my killer job and car, etc."

You know...rather than trying to gather 100-300 online 'friends', I guess I've just been busy with my 10-15 REAL friends. Most of them, I've known for over 20 years. I already know if their married, kids or not, what they do for a living. We all keep in touch by varios means, but, nothing is better than the face to face visit.

The important people (some I've known since I was 11yrs old), are the ones that I'd toss my house keys to, trust with my dog and other worldy possessions. These are people that I'd trust to help me in a life or death situation...people that I'd loan money to without hesitiation if they asked. I'd much rather spend my time on those friends rather than trying to rack up 100's of names for a website.

Don't get me wrong, I love to find old acquantences from the past...and hope they grow into friends, but, in general time spent grooming and promoting real friendships is time better spent.

Re:Executive Summary

[Xeirxes (908329)]

The interesting difference between Facebook and MySpace, for me, is that most of my friends on MySpace aren't really friends... just kind of a collection. On Facebook, my friends are the people I really care about and like to talk to a lot. I see many of them more than once a week. I guess there are different friend strategies for everyone, but I don't feel that the friend collection is the norm.

Re:

[feepness (543479)]

On Facebook, my friends are the people I really care about and like to talk to a lot. I see many of them more than once a week.

Then seriously, what's Facebook for/i.

Re:Executive Summary

[by Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to start a holy war here, but what is the deal with you Facebook fanatics? I've been sitting here at my freelance gig in front of Facebook for about 20 minutes now while it attempts to copy 17 friends from one group on the site to another group. 20 minutes. At home, on my Orkut account, which by all standards should be a lot slower than Facebook, the same operation would take about 2 minutes. If that.

In addition, during this transfer, Netscape will not work. And everything else has ground to a halt. Even Notes is straining to keep up as I type this.

I won't bore you with the laundry list of other problems that I've encountered while working on Facebook, but suffice it to say there have been many, not the least of which is I've never seen Facebook run faster than its social networking counterparts, despite Facebook's faster Web 2.0 architecture. My 486/66 with 8 megs of ram runs Orkut faster than this 300 mhz machine does Facebook at times. From a productivity standpoint, I don't get how people can claim that the Facebook is a superior social networking site.

Facebook addicts, flame me if you'd like, but I'd rather hear some intelligent reasons why anyone would choose to use Facebook over other faster, cheaper, more stable systems.

Re:

[Mr_Silver (213637)]

Obviously looks don't make or break a social networking site. In fact, I would wager that marketing (movies have their own MySpace pages now, what?) has much more to do with it than usability or functionality.

MySpace has a significant advantage over facebook - that is the length of time it has been running and the user base. People will put up with something that isn't so great if all their friends are using it (insert IM client you think is lousy here).

If MySpace and facebook launched at the same time

Re:

[Mister Whirly (964219)]

Actually, Myspace does have a legitimate, non-douchebag use. Bands. Keeping in contact with fans and getting information to them. It is how I got started networking among musicians, and seems to have been designed with this in mind. It is an excellent, easy to use, and free tool to promote your music. It has made my life as a band manager much easier in many aspects. I could care less about the 14-20 year old little rugrats who have nothing better to do than brag about stupid shit. I'm in it for the band in

The real reason

[Jaaay (1124197)]

behind the success of all SN sites is most people prefer to sit at home sending messages to everyone they may or may not know instead of picking up the phone. It's more impersonal so people find it easier to waste time casually instead of calling up 30 people and going out so much.

Re:The real reason

[wallyhall (665610)]

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comici d=877 [phdcomics.com]

I see this every day. For real.

Re:The real reason

[HTH NE1 (675604)]

With all the comparing of friend-counts as a measure of social status, I treat Facebook and other social networking sites like a game of Global Thermonuclear War: the only way to win is not to play.

Or, to paraphrase an old military recruitment campaign slogan, all I need is a few good friends.

Re:

[kaleco (801384)]

I find social networking (in my case using Bebo) to be an excellent way of keeping in touch with casual acquaintences, like people I work beside, friends who have moved away or general people I don't really have a need to phone. Some people treat friends like Pokemon cards, and the sites certainly encourage this. When you log in to Bebo you're presented with an 'Updates' page which shows the latest developments in your contacts' social arms race- a list of who's added who to their friends list. However, I'

Re:

[Tuoqui (1091447)]

No its because going to a movie costs like $10-12 for the ticket. Then another $20 for a supersized popcorn and pop that'd make McDonald's jealous.

Total cost for 2 people to go: $60-70.

Coincidentally the MPAA is losing money as social networking sites gain popularity :P might as well blame it on that instead of piracy.

I don't have to worry about this

[eln (21727)]

I have 2,874 friends on MySpace, and they are all super cool. All the women are constantly trying to get me to look at them naked (girls, please, one at a time! I'm not a machine!) and the guys are always trying to give me free stuff (iPods, Wiis, you name it!). I am truly blessed to have so many generous and caring friends.

Re:I don't have to worry about this

[phatvw (996438)]

Wow you are popular!

Does anyone remember the days where having your own website on Geocities or whatever automatically made you a big nerd? Man, I even had my own free top-level domain name back then... If only I knew how cool that actually was, I could have built a an empire and I would be getting mad p-ssay!

50 friends

[MillionthMonkey (240664)]

A person should have 50 friends, max. Problem solved.

Re:

[sqrt(2) (786011)]

So you're saying 50 friends should be enough for anyone? ...I'm so sorry

Re:50 friends

[MillionthMonkey (240664)]

You already have fifty friends. To add more friends, please first select one or more of your existing friends and drag them to the Dead To Me folder.

NOTE: Subscribers can have up to 500 friends!
[x] Tell me more

Re:

[Analogy Man (601298)]

It has been said that if you need more than one hand to count your true friends, you should consider yourself blessed.

Of course this definition of friend is the sort that would bring you chicken soup when you had the flu, help you dig an old oil tank out of your yard, take your kids up to their cabin so you could have a quite weekend with your spouse, help you get through the loss of a family member or divorce...

Re:

[liquidpele (663430)]

Okay, while I agree 100%, that was WAY to deep for a discussion about Facebook.

Facebook is a place mainly for people to keep track of old never-going-to-see-in-person-again friends' contact information, and for college kids to send out party invites. That's the extent of it.

If you only talk to your closest friends on facebook, you probably need counseling for depression.

large number of friends?

[gbjbaanb (229885)]

while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number,

They can see I have a pathetically small member?!? I *knew* I shouldn't have bought that webcam.

Oh.. number... sorry... :-)

Well, who cares if I don't have any friends - I mean, why else would I be using Facebook.

* disclaimer: I happen not to have a webcam, or use Facebook. And fortunately I was blessed by God. Still don't have any friends though, why else would I be posting on /. ?

Friends

[dunezone (899268)]

Facebook also digs away at the insecurities in people. "I have one friend" probably makes some people feel a bit insecure and Billy no-mates. In the deeply insecure, this may be amplified by the lie-awake-at-night worry that your peers can see your profile on Facebook, and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number, confirming your worst fears about the low opinion they have probably held of you over all those years etc.

The individual who has less friends is more likely to be secure with themselves, since you know they actually try to create some sort of friendship bond. Ive had facebook since 2005 when my university was added to the system. So far Ive realized that the individual who adds everyone as a friend, even when the two people have only said "Hi" once to each other, is usually the person who is insecure and just fucking crazy.

Re:Friends

[sqrt(2) (786011)]

Too fucking true.

I only have 12 friends on facebook because...I only have twelve friends that USE facebook. I don't just add random people because they're from the same school/region, and I don't accept request from the same.

Re:

[0100010001010011 (652467)]

Limited profile. Back when I used Facebook (before it was full of these wonderful "features"). I used my limited profile extensively. People that added me as their friend that I really didn't know too well got my limited profile. No pictures, no address, no wall. They just assumed I didn't facebook much. Every so often I'd either promote or demote people. I haven't seen or talked to you in 2 months. You're not a friend. We started hanging out and you're cool. Full profile.

It's multiplayer Address Book.

[Kadin2048 (468275)]

Seconded.

Where I really draw the line is in "friending" people that you've never met except via Facebook/Myspace, and that you have no real connection to otherwise. It seems like at that point, you've transformed what's basically a useful online addressbook into ego-boosting wankery.

I really like Facebook, but I guess I'm just not really into "social networking." (Whatever that means, exactly.) To me it's a good way to keep track of people's changing contact information (it was so much better back when they had an automatic export-to-VCard option) and occasionally to browse photos (although, if you have more than a handful there are better places to go, like Flickr).

Ultimately what I want out of Facebook is just a version of 'finger [gnu.org]' that's simple enough for non-technical people to use. As they've gotten further away from that core functionality, it's become less compelling.

Re:Friends

[Lurker2288 (995635)]

To be fair, though, one of my friends has tons of people on her Facebook page, and when I called her on it, she pointed out that a lot of random classmates/friends of friends/desperate guys sent her friend requests, and she would rather take the low cost step of adding them as a friend, rather than rejecting them and generating ill will. I guess you could classify that as insecurity, but personally I think it's a normal social reaction, given that it takes pretty much no effort/energy/thought to add someone as a friend.

I don't have hundreds of friends...

[TubeSteak (669689)]

Mostly because I don't friend every casual acquaintance.

Because I know I can't keep up with >100 people, I don't bother to try.
Not to mention that the feed would run for pages.

Soo, it seems I don't fit into TFA's first three, or last two categories.
For those of you who aren't going to read it, that leaves one category.

And not to attack the author, but this is a reprint of something he wrote for his blog.

friends list envy

[Lazarian (906722)]

"and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number" I'd rather have 10 or so people who are worth communicating with than 200 who I could barely keep up with. Most people who have enormous lists of friends probably view themselves as being in a popularity contest anyway.

Re:

[Bill, Shooter of Bul (629286)]

Yeah, I keep it exclusive. You've got to complete a 3 page off line application with supporting letters written by two friends already accepted. Got to keep the riff raff out you know.

Oh noes!

[mecenday (1080691)]

You have more strangers in your friends list than I!

low friend count?

[SolusSD (680489)]

I have around 70 facebook friends- most of which happen to be real friends. Anyone with 200/300+ facebook friends is most likely just adding anyone they know.

Re:

[lawpoop (604919)]

70 friends!? I only have 15. Man, I'm never going on facebook again!

Re:low friend count?

[whyde (123448)]

Definition of "freind":

• Web 2.0: Someone who recognizes your name and is willing to click a mouse button.
  
• Reality: Someone who will help you move.
  
• Fiction: Someone who will help you move the body.
  

Re:

[kabocox (199019)]

Definition of "friend":
* Web 2.0: Someone who recognizes your name and is willing to click a mouse button.
* Reality: Someone who will help you move.
* Fiction: Someone who will help you move the body.

I want something that's a cross between a telephone book and a year book for my town. Actually, I want to be able to click on a web page and see everyone employed in my building and their name, their position and their picture

Re:

[vux984 (928602)]

I will often add people I have just met because I hope that I will get to know them better in the future (possibly through Facebook).

Really... you go to a friends house a 1000 miles away, and he has his buddy over for like an hour one night, and you'd add him to your friends list... so you know if you ever wanted to call him up you could... or if you wanted to show him pictures of your vacation you could... or because you wanted to check out his vacation pictures... or the pictures of his kids (who you didn

Thirty friends is more than I'll ever need

[hansamurai (907719)]

I actually really like Facebook, even though I've been out of school for over a year, I still go there every day to catch up with friends. The thing is, I don't really have a lot of friends on Facebook, about 30 I think, which for me is more than enough. Everyone I'm friends with on Facebook, I'm actually friends with in real life, or know them very well through online forums. I don't indiscriminately accept friends from random people with the same last name, or kids who went to high school with me that I never talked to; I wasn't your friend then and I'm not your friend now. At one point, I had about 10 people in "friend limbo". People who wanted to be my friend but I didn't have the heart to deny them, but I denied them all one day, so that's that.

30 friends is a good number to keep up with for me. My "news feed" gets filled every day and I get to keep up with all of them easily.

Facebook is engineering their customer base

[192939495969798999 (58312)]

Facebook already knew this. Their "slick appearance" and easy integration with schools, etc. is really just a way to rope in a lot of customers, and play on people's vanity and insecurity in order to create a rich and detailed advertising market. How else do you find out for sure what movies people like? One easy way is to let them advertise what they think is "cool" to their friends. Isn't everything on Facebook just a cleverly (or not) disguised ad? IMHO they hope to derive most of their income from

Who Cares?

[friend.ac (1071626)]

Come on, who honestly cares whether someone has got 400 friends or 40, obviously it goes back to the old school days of "I've got more friends than you" but surely we've grown out of it - haven't we?

I run a small, free SN website, that I've tried match between MySpace and Facebook, people do click round and add random people to their friends list, but surely its a good thing to get to meet new people that you wouldn't normally do, whether its online or not?

I actually met my girlfriend, soon to be wife and mother online, so I think its a great thing and just some fun, but you have to admit all the news about Facebook groups and someone getting thrown out of school, reporting of bullying online as well as all the 'analysis' of Facebook or Myspace is all about publicity (positive or negative doesnt matter) for them - I'm sure half of it is marketing!

Re:Who Cares?

[Icarus1919 (802533)]

I don't know if it's a good thing to find a new mother online...

Re:Who Cares?

[multipart/mixed (163409)]

> I actually met my girlfriend, soon to be wife and mother online,

Dude, that's gross.

Where do you live, in a trailer park or something?

Re:

[Dr. Cody (554864)]

I actually met my girlfriend, soon to be wife and mother online,

I've seen plenty of people mentioning their girlfriends on Slashdot, but until now I had never yet seen anybody mention they knocked up an internet lady for ePenis++.

Wow

[Mr_Silver (213637)]

Facebook also digs away at the insecurities in people...your peers can see your profile on Facebook, and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number, confirming your worst fears about the low opinion they have probably held of you over all those years etc.

So just like real life then.

As in, there are some people who think that the number of friends you have (however rare you see, speak or do anything with them) is more important than a smaller number of quality friends who you see, speak and socialise with more often.

Facebook doesn't take much to run

[Animats (122034)]

The amazing thing about Facebook is that it's a tiny company. Facebook headquarters is in a little building at 170 Hamilton Avenue in Palo Alto, next to the yoga shop and nail salon, and across from the retro soda fountain. It doesn't take much in the way of staff to run the thing. The servers are in Northern Virginia, but most of the staff is in that little building in Palo Alto.

Now that's successful "Web 2.0".

Avoiding Social Failure...

[puppetman (131489)]

If there is a fear of social failure, then wouldn't people avoid Facebook if they suspected that other hold a low opinion of them?

As for the 300 "friends" argument - I have little time in real life for people outside work who aren't good friends. I certainly don't have time to maintain tenuous relationships electronically with people I barely know or barely remember. It's the quality of your friendships, not the quantity.

10 Years ago

[Tragedy4u (690579)]

If you proclaimed you had 100 online friends you would've been branded a nerd and outcast. Now if you have 100 online friends you're a 'cool' person. The mentality of computers certainly has changed.

Quality vs Quantity

[Rik Sweeney (471717)]

and while they may have 50, 100, 200 friends they will mockingly see that you have a pathetically small number

I'll take quality over quantity any day of the week

Insecurity flies both ways

[AncientPC (951874)]

I don't have karma to spare but what the hell.

Instead of people bragging about their high friend count, everybody on /. brags about their low friend count. Isn't that just proving insecurity in another fashion? "Look how not insecure I am by having only 2 online friends!"

Another thing a lot of y'all don't realize, not everyone is exactly like you. Not everyone values a small group of close friends over a large social network of drinking buddies and that's OK. Your way is not the only way to create a social circle, stop looking down on others simply because they have a large social network with shallow relationships.

And you know what? They know their social network is mostly shallow relationships and they're OK with that. They're the ones who built it!

Facebook -- your Privacy online?

[soren100 (63191)]

One of the really interesting things about sites like Facebook is that people are putting all of their data into a massive interlinked network, which is both an advertiser's wet dream and the government's as well.

Your email, address, friends, music, books, other interests, and who you're dating are all available on Facebook for whoever wants that information, together with your political views, club associations, educational background, possibly even your job history.

Besides the information that you yourself put online, Facebook also contains information that it actively gains about you through other means -- just check their privacy policy: [facebook.com]

Facebook may also collect information about you from other sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the service (e.g., photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful information and a more personalized experience.

So there is a profile of you in Facebook that you don't have access to, but also contains logs of chats that you have had from IM services that sold your chats to Facebook! Plus blog posts mentioning you and who knows what else -- that's pretty creepy.

The US government has let it be known that they want "Total Information Awareness" [wired.com] for a while, and sites like Facebook end up linking all kinds of intimate personal details of large groups of people, making it one of the ideal sources for gathering that information.

The CIA is using Facebook as a recruiting tool [wired.com], but Facebook itself also seems to have gotten its funding from people from people heavily involved in the CIA. [albumoftheday.com]

The CIA has also been very interested in student activities for decades. [cia-on-campus.org] Most of today's leaders got started in political activities as students, and students are much less guarded about their self-expression, so it makes sense that universities would be perfect places to start gathering information for anyone planning to influence future political events.

So go ahead and post all your personal information online, but just be aware of people other than advertisers who might be looking at it and why.