Why do so many people use Facebook, or other social media? Are there certain general types of people that everyone seems to fall into? It seems so. Maybe not very specifically but sort of like how a personality test can generalize a dominant type yet we still have qualities of other types as well.
Credit: Nate Edwards
/BYU Photo
Three researchers from Brigham Young University wanted to know why there are 2 billion unique users in a month, and 1.28 billion each day, averaging over 30 minutes of Facebook use each day for each person. Something draws people to use Facebook or other social media sites.
They came up with 4 categories of users -- and their motivations:
- selfies
- relationship builders
- window shoppers
- town criers
To get those general types, a list of 48 reasons for why people might be on Facebook was presented to people, which they ranked as most-like or least-like themselves.
Selfies
Selfies self-promote. They post pictures, videos and text updates. They focus on getting attention in the form of likes and comments about their personal life and the image they present of themselves. The statement most identified by these types of people was: "The more 'like' notification alarms I receive, the more I feel approved by my peers."
Relationship Builders
Relationship builders do just that. They post and respond to other posts, and contact people through other features like messaging. The virtual world acts as an extension of their attempt to establish relationships. They identified the most with the phrase: "Facebook helps me to express love to my family and lets my family express love to me."
Window Shoppers
Window shoppers don't really post much personal information. They might be there for social obligations like seeing what's going on in society or other people's lives. They watch. They identify the most with the statement: "I can freely look at the Facebook profile of someone I have a crush on and know their interests and relationship status."
Town Criers
Town criers post, and have a social obligation of their own. They less not concerned with sharing personal photos or stories about themselves, and more so with informing people about news stories or other information or events.
The types relate to Facebook, but I have extended them to apply to all social media as a motivational reason for why we are on Steemit, Facebook, Twitter, or other sites.
These categories are smaller than regular personality tests, but I think they are generally accurate to cover most of the reasons people are on social media. I also find that these categories show the motivations and drives for why we use social media platforms, whereas regular personality types don't really indicate such. A better categorization framework could probably be made, but this is an interesting quaternal model. What do you think?
So, why do you use social media? Were you previously aware of why you did? Are you only one type, or mostly one type?