Kshitiz Anand

We live in interesting times. Did you know that many people now access their Facebook profile the first thing in the morning and It is difficult to communicate with some people, because they are not social media savvy.

In an interesting info-graphic of a recently published research titled “How Social Media is Ruining Our Minds“, it was observed that, over the course of the last ten years the average attention span has dropped from 12 minutes to a staggeringly short 5 seconds. That’s right! Just 5 seconds! People around the world spend close to 700 billion minutes on Facebook every month, and there handling over 1.6 billion search queries per day on Twitter and 250 million tweets per day (Oct 2011). Those are huge numbers!

In such times, there ought to be better strategies for Social Media engagement for individuals as well as business. Almost as prevalent as blind social media evangelism is the level of fatigue and ennui around it.

Understanding the Why

Information as the building block for Social Media Platforms

In my opinion, one of the key influencers of the Social media phenomenon is around the word Information. In an article first published in 1995, advances in computers and data networks inspire visions of a future “information economy’‘ in which everyone will have access to gigabytes of all kinds of information anywhere and anytime. Ten years from now we may find the economic institutions of the information economy a similarly unremarkable part of our day-to-day life. (The Information Economy: How much will two bits be worth in the digital marketplace? – Hal R. Varian, 1995).

I would like to believe that the Social Media is a direct consequence of this information economy and its main drivers are the terms Informational Activity and the Information Industry. Information could be of different kinds. They could be functional, instructional / actionable, recreational, motivational, confidential, philosophical, knowledgeable etc. Each of this information created could be either short lived or meant to last for a certain amount of time. It could be a valuable one or a useless one. It could be global or it could be local. It could be a created bit or it could be shared bit.

In the times of the Social Media and Social Networks, this information is getting created at a rate faster than ever before. Emails, Tweets, Social network updates, are best when they are consumed fresh and the rise of technological platforms that ensure a 24X7, seamless experience, we end up consuming more than we can handle. Social Networks and Social Media platforms are the facilitators of this information dissemination and promoter for information exchange.

In the times of Social Media, we are the champions of creating Information. From amateurs to professionals across all age groups are creating this information. Practically anyone with an access to the technology has the power at his fingertips to create the information, which could then be shared and consumed at a much larger platform in this globalized world.

However we should understand that every-information that we consume, takes some of our energy. It is this excessive consumption of energy that brings in the fatigue.

Nobel laureate economist Herbert A. Simon puts it nicely, “What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention, and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. Technology for producing and distributing information is useless without some way to locate, filter, organize and summarize it.”

On one side you have excessive information being created and on the other hand, there is only a certain amount that the brain can process and consume. This is resulting in Social Media Fatigue.

What is it resulting in?

You are being watched. Every thing from whom you follow to what you read to what movie you saw to whom who hanged out with. It has taken over our lives.  This takeover of the life by the Social Media Networks is something that needs some pondering over. The times we live in often reminds me of the note in the George Orwell’s classic 1984, Big Brother is watching you. Social Media and Networks are the new Big Brother.

In a research done by Retrevo, for over 1000 participants, they found that close to 42% of the respondents accessed Facebook the first thing in the morning. The Retrevo Gadgetology study also shows that 48% of those polled say they update Facebook or Twitter during the night or as soon as they wake up. And 19% of people under the age of 25 say they update Facebook or Twitter anytime they happen to wake up during the night; 11% over the age of 25 say they do the same thing. (March 2010)

Social Media and Social Network Sites on its face value seem like just a new set of cool tools for involving people for consumption of information, but the impact of that is beyond that.

For example young people are using social network sites for:

• Keeping in touch with friends and acquaintances;
• Developing new contacts often with friends of friends, or people with shared interests
• Sharing content, engaging in self expression & exploring identity
• Hanging out and consuming content including commercial and user-generated content
• Accessing information and informal learning
• Participating in informal groups, and formal youth engagement opportunities;

We have become adept at Multi tasking and become masters of the usage across platforms. The impact is felt on the mind on our Social status, the personal self, the position in the society, and also on our productivity.  Our conversations are in 140 characters or less and videos that are often under 10 minutes are used as a tool to pass on judgments easily. We have become more opinionated and have developed a knack for raising our voices over anything we feel is not right. We keep waiting for a basic notification of an information bit we created getting acknowledged.

All these are leading to the fundamental change in the way we view and consume information. Because the information has to be processed at such a higher rate, it is but natural that fatigue sets in early.

Addressing the Social Media fatigue problem

With the overload of information all around, it is so easy to be disillusioned, frustrated, feel lost. It becomes necessary to identify a way address it.
“We all know very well that activity within social networking can lead to distractions. With one click, we can find ourselves hopelessly lost in a labyrinth of fascinating experiences that have nothing to do with our initial focus. Serendipity is part of the splendor of social media, but it is something that necessitates discipline to learn, entertain and be entertained, while also staying the course. In the end, we exchange time and privacy for exposure and attention.

The reality is that the cost of social networking is great and without checks and balances, engagement can cost us more capital than we have to spend. The net result is then social and emotional bankruptcy. And, the most difficult part of this unfortunate state is that it is at first difficult to recognize and far more exacting to overcome.

 – Brian Solis, principal at Altimeter Group, a research-based advisory firm in The Human Cost of Social Connectivity

It is important for both businesses and individuals to understand this. Here are a few tips on how this could be addressed.

1.The veracity of Information in consumption

At times we do feel overboard with the entire information flood around us. Not everything we see and read is trustworthy, reliable, and even true. The key is to get to the truth of the information. This filtering out of information based on what is needed versus what is just useless mass would enable to get to actual information that matters most. It would also enable in building the trust with the consumer and the creator of the information too, which would further allow to have better engagements.

 2. Rethink the Social Media Strategy when it comes to sharing

Like they say, an overdose of everything is bad. For businesses and individuals this mean that they need to see the Social media technologies as a tool that enables them to relate more to the user but not overdoing it. The novelty of social media can wear off soon (as is evident by the numerous ones that did not take off), leaving all those fans and followers wondering about the unexpected dip in activity.

 3. Get SMART in your engagement

Fight social media fatigue by getting a S.M.A.R.T (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timed) plan in place. This means that we know the reasons why we are on a Social Network, understand what we want to get out of it, be realistic in our assumptions and devote only a certain amount of time to it. Scheduling the time for the Social Media engagement also works wonders.

4. Understand the Value add and do not get burdened

Every Social Network or Social Media Technology is created to bring in some value add. We need to understand what it is. Whether twitter can be an avenue for our daily news, or Facebook is a better source for getting accolades on photographs that Flickr. The answer lies in understanding what value add what social networks provide. Always remember what you are on the Social Media platform for. Do not start out to do things that are potentially beyond the intended usage of the Social Media platform, which results in feeling burdened about it.

5. Understand user’s online behavior

Understand the key profiles like influencers, motivators, consumers, creators etc. in your network. Tools like Klout measure the online influence of their users and content and provides with a score. This measure of influence is primarily seen as the ability to drive others to action.

6. Do not be a master of all

With the constant rise of social networks, and peer pressure, we often give in to the temptation of being omnipresent across social medias. This is not only bad for privacy issues, but also brings in the tiredness resulting from the obligation of being active everywhere. Choose the SM platforms and tools that really benefit who you are and who you’re connected with. Do not just sign up for the latest thing without some understanding of what you’re signing up for.

In conclusion

It is evident that we cannot do away with Social networks and Social Media Technology, for once a particular technology has penetrated a significant portion of the market, it may be very difficult to dislodge it. While a lot of us will agree that social media has added much to our lives, let’s just not forget that it is NOT life itself. Our online behaviors have changed and so have our notion of relationships and commitments.

Platforms will come and go, and the impact that these Social Media platforms will have is going to be a lot more than what it is. A few Social Media platforms are already doing that, and constantly finding ways to engage the user to have a more lasting impact.

The need of the hour is to understand the human potential in being able to cope up with this. This is important for both the businesses as well as the individual.

 (This is a re-print of the article that appeared in the Issue 3 of the Social Technology Quarterly magazine, published by Kuliza Technologies Limited. )