Fun with Psychology, Sociology

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Social Media

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We are strange

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But often in the same ways

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Social Media Has More Payoffs Than We Think

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Luck = Outgoing = Connections

http://www.theluckfactor.com/make-your-luck/build-a-network.asp

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Benefits Translate Into the Real World

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1398/internet-mobile-phones-impact-american-social-networks

Sharing the Special

7Photo: “Sharing” by: ryancr on Flickr

“If I’ve just read this story that changes the way I understand the world and myself, I want to talk to others about what it means. I want to proselytize and share the feeling of awe. If you read the article and feel the same emotion, it will bring us closer together.”

- Jonah Berger, Assistant Professor of Marketing, Wharton - http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/science/09tier.html 8

9http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjTaV01eOeM

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Awe makes you feel - and we all want to feel

Psychology shows us how we make mistakes...

11Photo: “Hypnotised pumpkin” by minipixel on Flickr

Problem:

The Curse of Knowledge

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We are greatly limited by what we know.

It corrupts how we convey things to others

And our perception of how others see things.

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Problem:

Distinguishing Source

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http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pedobear15

http://pedobearpics.com/

Illustration by Angela Merickhttp://mbarrick.livejournal.com/894999.html

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http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/pedobear18

Pedobear added by artist Michael Barrickhttp://mbarrick.livejournal.com/894999.html

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[The Bad]

Metronews, Vancouver20

Problem:

Rumors

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Sure, death is easy to disprove. But what if the rumor isn’t as cut and dry.

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Steve cheats on his wife.

Carol’s an anti-Semite.

How do you disprove that?

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You can’t.

And it spreads.

And it doesn’t die.

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“Here we are, quadrillions of bytes deep into the Information Age. And yet information, it seems, has never mattered less.”

-Elizabeth Kolbert, “The Things People Say: Rumors in an age of unreason”, The New Yorker

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“[P]eople usually do not moderate their position after hearing an opposing opinion, but rather become more extreme about their original view.

And, as easy as it is to spread a rumor, it can be extremely difficult to squelch one. Attempts to correct a rumor often backfire and only cause people to believe it more deeply.”

-Elizabeth Kolbert, “The Things People Say: Rumors in an age of unreason”, The New Yorker (interpreting Cass Sunstein’s theories)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/09/AR2009100901717.html

Problem:

Lack of Context

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"To an increasing degree, your silly, confused, flirtatious, angry and offensive moments, on Facebook and in email or in daily life, are subject to being recorded and stored (forever) and, potentially, mischaracterized"

- Cass Sunstein36

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We don’t have full story in 54 seconds

We follow other people re: Popularity

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Problem:

39http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/st_clive_thompson

Myopia

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Problem:

“I interviewed gay men who thought Friendster was a gay dating site because all they saw were other gay men...I interviewed teens who believed that everyone on MySpace was Christian because all of the profiles they saw contained biblical quotes. We all live in our own worlds with people who share our values and, with networked media, it's often hard to see beyond that.”

- Danah Boyd, Social Media Researcher

We want it more if we think it’s scarce

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Problem:

Let’s pretend the supply here is limited

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I’m going to assume they have plenty of these

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Just an educated guess

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Insight

More

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“The widespread availability of world wide fora does not create new social or moral standards, it merely gives people the opportunity to spread their immoral ideas more effectively.Instead of convicting sites like Facebook, researchers on human traits should praise them for easily and freely externalising what goes about in society.

- Blogger, Fabrice Hofmanhttp://fanemka.blogspot.com/2010/02/sociology-and-social-media-two-case.html47

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Who knew there was such demand?

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We don’t always see what we think we do

Reference Articles, Experiments and Books

See

http://delicious.com/mhamburg/PsychSocialMedia

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Find Articles, Notes & Resources

You can find this presentation on:

http://www.slideshare.net/mhamburg

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Contact Me

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