This is the correlation between social media platforms and levels of human consciousness based on the Spiral Dynamics model (see chart below for reference).
Level 1 - INSTINCTIVE (Beige)
SnapChat as it is optimised for ... snappy posts.
Quick, instinctive and quick thinking kind of material.
Here we find the lowest consciousness material.
The platform grew by secret sharing of porn and sex material.
Then it grew to higher level consciousness.
Of course, nowadays with so many millions of people on it, it has many higher level consciousness people on it, but overall, I would say it is pretty ... instinctive and low level thinking material for the most part.
Level 2 - MAGIC / TRIBAL (Purple)
Facebook did very well to capture this low level of tribal mindset.
This was not by any chance at all.
Mark Zuckerberg is an educated psychologist.
Facebook started as a tribal platform within Universities.
It continues to be so with Facebook Groups and pages.
Facebook dominates this field and this is one of the main reasons for its worldwide dominance.
It's the ultimate 'tribal tribute'.
Level 3 - POWER / EGO (Red)
Instagram comes to mind here first.
Millions of self-absorbed selfies who only exist because their photo exists online.
They have to prove to the world that they are prettiest.
They play for likes and virality.
They live and die on their own fame.
Huge players on Instagram are people such as Dan Bilzerian.
The ultimate grand ego.
Any wisdom you will find on Instagram falls into misguided tribal ego aggrandisements.
Tumblr is also resides at this level.
It might be even lower down on the scale closer to Level 2.
Twitter falls here too.
Lots of wars happen on there between big egos of people like Trump and various other truth warriors.
We put YouTube here too.
Its most popular content is on this level of vMemes.
Its worth noting that plenty of less popular conscious content resides on YouTube too.
Egotistic pop stars also have huge following on both Instagram and Twitter.
They often drive fan wars between each other to promote their own egos.
Level 4 - RULE (Blue)
LinkedIn rules this fair and square.
Although got infiltrated by Level 2 and 3 growth hackers to some extent.
Most people on LinkedIn are capable, skilled, well educated and hard working individuals.
LinkedIn's article publishing for entrepreneurial influencers, jobs and acquisition of SlideShare cemented it well into this rule level.
SoundCloud is also on here as it is a pretty well regulated and a cultured platform, pushing on Level 6 Sensitive in some respects too.
Level 5 - RATIONAL (Orange)
Quora dominates here.
Its gamified process for ranking the most qualified answers and pre-selecting people on their qualifications to answer most relevant questions instills this rational way of creating content.
Growth hackers are much rarer on Quora to the best of my knowledge.
The platform can be very bland also and it is not for the faint hearted to post to.
Quora is great for real information, but will be boring to read, unless you are after heavy business insights.
Level 6 - SENSITIVE (Green)
This is the area where Vimeo with its more conscious, neater and well produced materials is.
Pinterest too with lots of top designed and tasteful content.
Medium is also a place where emotional, conscious and nature sensitive content features.
It is also a green branded platform, matching the level of content consciousness.
Level 7 & 8 - INTEGRAL & HOLISTIC (Yellow and Turquoise)
Phase shift of consciousness hasn't happened online yet en masse.
Human kind seems to be trailing way behind, playing the beige, purple and red vanity metric games.
Social networks residing at levels 1-4 aren't places where true conscious material propagates.
LinkedIn has a bit of a chance, but places like Medium might be a good candidate platform.
We have not even began to think about the 'social media of the future' yet.
Why? Because we, ourselves, are still battling our own shadows and egos very much.
The world is still stuck in the competitive, jealous, worried and FOMO driven state.
Many people are stuck way down in levels below Level 4.
The true opportunity for designers today is in focusing on redesigning humanity.
Helping people reach the consciousness levels of 5 and above.
This requires a huge element of dissolving, clearing and integrating shadow levels at Level 4 and below.
This, although often seen as hard, long and tedious work, does not have to be so.
We can now help you do it fast and with pleasure.
