Digital Oxytocin: How Trust Keeps Facebook, Twitter Humming

[kennyc]

Digital Oxytocin: How Trust Keeps Facebook, Twitter Humming
BY Adam PenenbergMon Jul 18, 2011
Internet users--Facebookers most of all--are a trusting bunch. Why? Because we are wired to build relationships around trust.

....I found this interesting sidenote as well:

There's a good reason for this. We humans are hard-wired to commingle with one another offline and on-, and the web and its platforms like Facebook and Twitter make it more efficient than ever. That's because virtual relationships can be as real as actual relationships. The truth is we're all one step removed from reality, living life through the prism of our own minds. Researchers at Washington University in St. Louis found when they scanned the brains of fiction readers that they reacted as if they were actually living the events in the story.

Zak has traced much of our behavior to oxytocin, a single neuropeptide he's dubbed "the moral molecule" because it appears to shape much of our better nature.

...

http://www.fastcompany.com/1767125/digital-oxytocin

[astrangerhere]

I was somewhat amused by this as I am about as anti-social networking as possible. I am intensely private, and I've refused all pleadings for me to join any of those social sites.

I am the co-administrator of another website and no one on staff there even knows my name. I tell my law students every fall how they can destroy their entire careers by what they are posting on facebook and twitter now. I guess that makes me digitally drug free

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I was somewhat amused by this as I am about as anti-social networking as possible. I am intensely private, and I've refused all pleadings for me to join any of those social sites.

I am the co-administrator of another website and no one on staff there even knows my name. I tell my law students every fall how they can destroy their entire careers by what they are posting on facebook and twitter now. I guess that makes me digitally drug free

I'm with you there. I do think it is a fascinating social phenomenon though!

[poohbear_nc]

I am continually amazed by what people post on open access Facebook pages. Recently one of employees called in "sick" and then was stupid enough to post on her Facebook page how she was taking the day off and fooled her "stupid" boss. A kind co-worker of hers printed that out at lunch to show the boss.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

I am continually amazed by what people post on open access Facebook pages. Recently one of employees called in "sick" and then was stupid enough to post on her Facebook page how she was taking the day off and fooled her "stupid" boss. A kind co-worker of hers printed that out at lunch to show the boss.

Yeah, now imagine that an employee has her boss friended on facebook. She posts photos of herself drunk and in barely any clothing. They flirt. The employee taunts the boss with words like "you know you want this." Then he puts his hand up her skirt in the office - something she did not want or had she planned for. She sues him for sexual harassment. And loses, because those facebook exchanges and photos were admitted into evidence. Not because she was a promiscuous woman or anything like that, but because of the standard of behavior she had deemed acceptable from him because of their internet interaction.

Can't make this stuff up, it was from a superior court case in 2010.

[Freeshadow]

how wonderful to see that /me is not the only one awoiding these "social net-twerks" like the pest.