It’s never pleasant when a cold shiver runs down your spine after you post something on Facebook and no one responds. A common side effect of Facebook Obsession.
Moments after a fresh posting you can’t help but feel the excitement of all the responses you’ll get from friends. Then 10 minutes pass. You can’t help but ask yourself, “Not one like – no, something is wrong. I posted a new profile picture, and not a single comment… Nothing?!”
In 30 minutes you begin to think, “But I look amazing!” “Maybe I just need to post it later today when more of my friends are online.”
After a few hours… “That’s it. I’ll just remove the picture. Nobody has to know.”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is your “Facebook id.” As Sigmund Freud theorized, “We are born with our id. The id is an important part of our personality because it allows us to get our basic needs met. The id is based on our pleasure principle.”
In today’s social media world, we have our Facebook pleasure principles:
In the “Facebook generation” we no longer think traditionally. All that matters to us is audience approval, a.k.a “Likes”. Our thought process has changed monumentally.
Throughout daily events we continually and subconsciously tell ourselves, “Wow, I’ve got to put this link on Facebook,” or “Look at this picture of the burrito I had at lunch, I have to post this on my wall!” Witty status updates, entertaining images and engaging videos are now how we categorize everyday life – a never-ending quest to get more of those little, blue “thumbs up” of approval and popularity.
We’ve begun to morph into what I like to call “Content Junkies” – doing anything for our daily fix of audience approval in the form of “likes” from our personal, or work endeavors.
We see “like” and we get happy, and when the feeling is gone… WE. WANT. MORE! Not to mention the feeling we get when nobody responds or clicks that little “like” button.
This is the sacred “Facebook id” that we live, update, protect, and develop every single day.
Don’t agree? Ask someone who displays this type of behavior to delete his or her Facebook account – forever. I’m willing to bet you’d have a better chance of Mark Zuckerberg saying “The Social Network” was an accurate depiction of the behemoth Web site’s conception. Facebook Obsession exposed.
I am a “Freud” to admit it:
Per Freud, “The id doesn’t care about reality, about the needs of anyone else, only its own satisfaction. When the id wants something, nothing else is important. If the id gets too strong, impulses and self-gratification take over the person’s life.”
Does this sound familiar to anyone else on Facebook? When we want something on Facebook, we will do anything to get it.
For instance, ever gone through a “Facebook break-up?”
The break-ups are usually followed by emotional status updates, threatening pictures, messages, repeated wall postings, and intimidating questions – just to name a few.
Social Media Obsession
We upload pictures of well-known people, beautiful surroundings and enviable lifestyle settings to achieve one thing: to be liked more for what we perceive. Nothing else seems to matter.
Now I just have one question for you…would your id be my id’s friend?
