I’m Eating At Cupid’s Hot Dogs and Other Superficial Facebook Comments Aren’t So Meaningless As You Think

Originally posted at Mediation Matters, a Mediation and Negotiation Blog by Steven G. Mehta.

Just recently I was having a discussion with some people regarding the different types of content on Facebook. I was getting inundated with requests to support specific political candidates. At that time, we also discussed the inane chit chat that often makes up Facebook. Some people commented that they don’t want to know about Johnny’s pet cat and others said that such comments are what makes Facebook so good. Well some recent research suggests that those comments and the superficial nature of some contacts on Facebook may be more worthwhile

some people think.

A recent report compiled by Håkan Selg, a doctoral candidate at the Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University, suggests that the people that have numerous superficial contacts may in fact have developed a highly useful network that make use of the ostensibly meaningless comments and updates.

“The portrait, comments, and updates provide constant reminders of the existence of ‘friends.’ The content is not all that important, but the effect is that we perceive our Facebook friends as closer than other acquaintances who are not on Facebook,” says Håkan Selg.

The report also revealed that social media has started first as a social tool, and later as a business tool. As such, individuals who have a large social network have an advantage in the business world
because those contacts are highly sought after.

In addition, the social media allows individuals who don’t have the huge resources and capital to access information and tools that will assist them in all aspects of life including getting jobs, housing, or, developing new contacts.

“A realistic effect of social media is that many costs of running operations will decline in the long run. This will probably enable more people to start their own businesses in the future, thus successively
altering working life,” says Håkan Selg.

The consequences for this media are still unclear. But as a lawyer and mediator it does suggest that the time that you spend making small trivial comments as well as reading such comments can help make you closer to the community; and if your business connections are in your community, then you would hopefully become closer to your business network.

It is important to understand, however, that even with research, too many trivial and inane comments may in fact turn people off. According to one Facebook user, “I want to keep up with people. I don’t care that they grew another crop in Farmville. That is a complete waste of time. Or if they send too many updates in one day, I just shut them out.” As such, it is important to consider if your comments are too numerous or if your posts could be a turn off to your business acquaintances.

The original post can be found [here]. Feel free to drop by Mediation Matters and share your thoughts with Steven.

Story Source:

Uppsala Universitet (2010, October 19). ‘Drivel’ on Facebook more valuable than we think. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 30, 2010, from http://www.sciencedaily.com /releases/2010/10/101018074410.htm

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Permalink Reply by Barbara G. Madonik on November 11, 2010 at 10:21am

Interesting idea, Eric. Thanks for raising it.
I've actually gone out of my way to avoid some social media sites because of my concern about maintaing some amount of personal privacy. But today I did an experiment: I did a web search for a person who had a website for 20 years - and got little business from it. Imagine my surprise when I typed in his name surname plus his company name and found him -- and tremendously useful information --on several sites that allow him to blog, upload professional-quality media and inundate the public with ways to reach him. A "whois" search indicated that he had cancelled his website too. While I didn't really need to know some of his personal likes/dislikes, this exercise did prove to me that social media allows for much more (free) business exposure than I could have imagined. Has me rethinking some of my own choices...
Barbara Madonik
President, Unicom Communication Consultants Inc.