The Leveraged Network Effect

Unfortunately, my wife has a very bad habit - like a lot of people, she spends a lot of time consuming from "social" media, which is a funny name for it, since the information is largely going one way. At least at the surface level. The majority of users no longer post on these platforms that gave everyone a voice, they just consume - like at an all-you-can-eat buffet. No need to get into the kitchen and make something, no need to do the cleaning up.

Eat.

Today while we were eating lunch together, she was talking about a person account on Instagram that she dislikes but follows, and I asked why she still follows it. According to her, she just hadn't got around (in a few years) to unfollowing it. Which is of course an excuse, because while she doesn't like the content there, she still has the morbid curiosity and schadenfreude of seeing what comes through the feed. My advice,

Do it now.

So she did.

But, when she got there, was horrified that several of her friends and colleagues also follow the same account. When I mentioned that of course they do, because you follow them, she said, *but I don't comment or share their content.

It doesn't matter.

Because this is not the way it works - because share or not, your network is being leveraged and suggesting accounts to follow to other users, using your name as a glowing endorsement for why. But, you never see this, because it doesn't appear on your feed, it appears on the feed of your friends and followers and if you like it, perhaps they should like it too. I haven't checked, but it likely says in the terms and conditions that they can use your name and account for advertising purposes.

It is like wearing Nikes and them using your image on a billboard.

You bought our product, we own your likeness.

And, we don't need to be famous to be influencers, even though we aren't the ones getting paid for it. In fact, the non-celebrity network is the valuable part of these platforms, because it is through these connections that advertisers spruik their wares, through the mouths of the paid influencers. Kim Kardashian spends a lot of money, but it is all her poor followers spending small amounts on crap they don't need that makes her rich.

The thing to remember on these centralized platforms is, that while you opened it and populated it with content and activities, it isn't actually yours. You can't stop how they use your account to influence others in the network, you can't stop what data they take, or how they use it. You might know that the way social media operates is harmful for the masses, but each user is also an enabler, part of the influencing committee that they never joined, having their voices leveraged to impact on the behaviors of others.

But, most people don't actually think about this, because we are spending our time consuming what we want to consume, not what of our behavior is being used to inspire consumption by others. The convenience of the platforms is the trap, because it takes all the thinking out of what we want, so we can just sit there and infinitely scroll, feeding the mechanisms that drive the algorithms that ~~enlist~~ entrap others and feed their infinite scroll, and so on and so forth - rinse and repeat.

Let's face it, we don't want to think about these things because it risks bursting our little bubble in the world and gets in the way of our convenience. We'd far rather sit back and consume under the guise that we are making the decisions, that we have control over what we are seeing, because we made the choice to view it. Yet, choice depends on priming and influence, meaning that the better the advertising, the more likely we are to act on it, to behave in an expected way. And, since we are social animals, social proofing is a powerful and impactful mechanism.

If we suggest to our friends to go and see a movie or visit a particular restaurant, they are far more likely to do so. Similarly, if we say how terrible a place is, they are also likely to avoid it. In our friend network, we are trusted advisors and a friend of ours is likely to be liked by our other friends. Social networks leverage this without us being fully aware, but other than us posting something negative directly, it is all positive reinforcement, where "people like us" are suggesting to follow, or support. Yet, we don't actually know what out of our follows and activities we are supporting, because the algorithms are going to do the work for us, posting our likeness actively, even though we are passive consumers.

I don't use these social media platforms, because I get so little of value out of them. People talk about not wanting to be a "cog in the machine" as an employee, but at least employees are getting paid for their activity, unlike the massive majority of the social platforms. It is working blindly for free to earn income for the corporation - passive slavery.

It is incredible how many people support these platforms, yet haven't thought much about what they actually get out of it, the costs of using it, or the impact it makes on their lives. I suspect that if most did, they would realize that the cost of their attention is more than the payment they are receiving for it. But, try arguing that with an avid user who is adamant that they aren't wasting their time, because after all, they know their time is valuable, so why would they?

I asked my wife if she would get one of those tracking apps to see where she spends the majority of her phone time and of course, she said she doesn't need it, she knows...