Why is Social Media so Popular?

The easy answer is that it is typically about our favorite topic, ourselves.  More often than not, most posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google+, etc. are about what we or our friends are doing.  Yes, there are also posts that are for business, marketing and educational purposes as well; however, the majority of posts on Social Networks are just that ‘social’.

Why is this the case, the scientific answer is that as social beings, humans spend a considerable amount of time communicating with one another.  In his article, “The Neuroscience of Everybody's Favorite Topic,” Adrian F. Ward notes that:

 “On average, people spend 60 percent of conversations talking about themselves—and this figure jumps to 80 percent when communicating via social media platforms such as Twitter or Facebook.”

Here is another article titled, “Why We Talk About Ourselves: The Brain Likes It”from the Psychology section of Time by Belinda Luscombe.

http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/08/why-we-overshare-the-brain-likes-it/

The most interesting part of the article for me was Luscombe’s report that found:

“In the study in which researchers offered people tiny amounts of money (between 1¢ and 4¢) for answering questions about themselves or others, people were willing to forgo 17% of their earnings in order to answer questions about themselves. When the payoff was equal, people chose to talk about themselves two-thirds of the time”.

Read more: Study: People Like to Talk About Themselves for Brain Buzz | TIME.com http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/08/why-we-overshare-the-brain-likes-it/#ixzz2ubR5Ismb