MVP BLOG - It is not about sharing, it is about control
What I realized recently, possibly precipitated by Facebook’s recent announcement that it would allow individuals’ personal pages to be converted to business pages, is that people and business are inherently not that different on social media sites. They are conveying a message, a message about themselves. In the business world, this is called marketing or advertising. In general, we are defined by our actions and words. Social media sites allow us, in a somewhat controlled manner, to brand ourselves. If you scroll through people's updates, a lot of the chatter is about generally benign stuff, like what they are eating, what they wearing, where they are going, etc... This helps to give a particular image of them, one of their creation. Of course, this only includes the dimensions that the person wants you to see. Therefore, in essence people are painting a specific image of themselves that they want the world to see.
In general, people do not feel truly under control, tools like social media give us this sense of control. Therefore, I do not believe it is about sharing, I think it is about giving us a sense of control of how we are perceived. (I am sure some anthropologist is written about this much more eloquently.)
At the end of the day, we all are looking for more control of our lives.
Time to update my status...