Social Media Norm Breaching Experiments

Experiment: The Oversharer

Method: I contacted 5 random people on Facebook messenger based on those who were online or online not long ago. I send all of them the same message of “hi I’m Hungry”. My goal was to go from being hungry, tired to doing school and to be eating.

Result: From the 5 people I message, 4 messaged back. Two of them joke around and took it as me introducing myself as hungry. One joke and send a video that he was elevating, another just said hi follow with a “lol”. I didn’t think any of them would respond if I constantly share or complain about things that really shouldn’t be share. Personally, I felt violated because I am not usually the type to overshare how I am feeling because it felt kinda forced. Some of them might feel like I was bored or lonely and wanted to talk to someone about how I was feeling while others might think I’m interested in them. Personally, I don’t think oversharing is the best way to make friends since I consider it to be overwhelming. I couldn’t bear oversharing for more than a few hours but these are the results I got.

Person 1:

A person I met from a friend that I haven’t talk to since 2018. In less than an hour of talking, he got a bit suspicious that I was messaging him. He was still nice though and still responded for a bit.

Person 2:

A person I don’t really know and message. Although he responded, he is really strange and I don’t think I would ever become friends with him.

Person 3:

A person that I haven't talk to since way back. He seems really chill but didn’t respond after some time.

Person 4:

A random person that responds and seems nice. Probably confused about why I was messaging.

To prevent people from feeling annoyed by the constant message and message that they don’t really care, I think that is where social norms come in. Although social norms rules are unwritten, they exist on different platforms to leave a satisfying impression and a more effective result. Thus creating a more emotional result between two people. An example of social norms in public would be shaking someone's hand when you meet someone or making eye contact with that person. When referring to social norms in social media, social norms change based on different media. A media example is Facebook, the not liking your own post rules, tagging random people, or asking for likes, comments, or shares. Although those are the social norms in Facebook, there are people that still do break the rule. As result leaves the person looking desperate which makes the other not want to engage.

The existence of social norms in social media is important as it shapes one thinking of what should be done and shouldn’t. This type of thinking could be useful in the real world where we talk to someone face to face. Like this experiment, no one likes to hear all your thoughts which don’t relate to them in any way. It becomes annoying and doesn’t make me feel good about myself.