The Social Capital of Human Experiences

Published February 28, 2019. In the not too distant past, people who cared about presenting a certain image – an image of means or prestige – would collect things: electronics, accessories, jewelry, cars, art, stocks, houses…you get the idea. The more valuable these things, the more braggadocious these types of collectors were likely to become: “My stuff is bigger or badder than your stuff.” But there’s been a shift in the making, a trend exacerbated by social media, and I don’t see it going away anytime soon. That trend is one-upmanship by personal experiences.

A confluence of factors has led to the trend of collecting experiences, and I believe current conditions will sustain “experience one-upmanship.”

Experience is a great word, isn’t it? It’s a noun and a word of substance. It’s tangible and powerful. Before we used experience in the context we do today, we described our presence in time in much more bland terms: “That was such a good time;” or “We had so much fun;” or “So awesome/amazing/rad/dope/[insert any other superlative adjective here]!” Until about a decade ago, the word “experience” wasn’t really part of our lexicon in terms of describing something we did. Instead, “experience” referred mostly to our professions or abilities (“She was an experienced pilot,” or “His experience as a child helping out in the kitchen fueled his desire to be a chef when he grew up.”)

Then, in parallel to the growing use of the Internet, the phrase “user experience” became popularized, a term that described the evaluation of the quality of our interaction with our digital world – a website user experience, for instance. This new meaning of experience seeped into our analog world, in anything from our interaction with our doctors to pumping gas to our vacations. Suddenly, all our interactions became defined as “an experience.”

I believe the earliest of “experience seekers” weren’t necessarily attempting to one-up others. They were, however, in search of something more intangible than mere things: they wanted to make memories, memories created by personal experiences. Other people could buy the same things you collected, but memories were (and are) far more exclusive: they’re the subjective and emotionally-connected recollection of time passing in a notable way. That’s what made memories precious.

But collecting and retaining private memories somehow changed along the way. When social media came around, suddenly people didn’t want to just collect their own memories -- they wanted to share them. Ironically, social media itself was a new experience, one that propagated sharing at scale. Social media’s birth may have also come at a time when collecting things suddenly seemed a little less shiny than social media sharing, and suddenly the experience-collecting trend took off -- a perfect storm.

People who began sharing experiences wanted other people to try to imagine experiencing them, too. On social media, people shared both their very best and their very worst experiences, and even their most ordinary ones. Experiences commanded attention. With experiences, people had something extremely potent to wave in front of others, something intangibly tangible with which to one-up one another. Over time, experiences have become today’s social capital, and people’s expectations for their experiences has raised the bar.

Everywhere today we see the value of this social capital. There’s the authentic and benign -- the social sharing (over-sharing?) of trips, visits, gatherings, and other occasions – to the staged or potentially damaging, like when consumers, wanting to show off the experience of wearing designer fashion, buy designer clothes they can’t afford, leave the tags, post selfies to Instagram, and then return the items to the store; or when attention-getting thrill seekers perish because they try to capture a photo too close the edge of a cliff and other foolishness; or the growing concern about “over-tourism” and careless tourism that threatens the essence of places all in the name of the one-upped experience, as evidenced by the selfie.

Marketers, too, know that they now have to focus on the language of experience of their product or service to try to woo new customers, and suppliers strive to provide the very best customer experience they can in order to achieve or surpass everyone’s expectations. We can’t blame business, though. They’re just responding to what their customers demand, and experience has become the currency in which sellers must now trade. In the business world, it’s called customer-centricity and it’s commanding everyone’s attention.

Experience has become the currency in which sellers must now trade.

 For instance, a June 2018 PWC report found that:

• 86% of buyers are willing to pay up to 18% more for a great customer experience;
• 73% of buyers point to customer experience as an important factor in purchasing decisions;
• 65% of buyers find a positive experience with a brand to be more influential than great advertising.

The beneficiaries of all of this customer-centricity is, of course, the customer. And this is a good thing, right? Mostly, I think it is. But people trying to create ever-more new experiences just to share them for one-upmanship is a vicious circle, one in which their actual experience may not even be fully enjoyed.

My personal opinion is that experiences – the good kind, at least -- should be made to be treasured, not over-exploited or shared compulsively. I can recount the time I went on a short weekend getaway with an out-of-state friend who I seldom get to see. We went hiking on an autumn day during the peak of color, and we stopped to take a selfie of a particularly scenic shot. Instead of continuing on the hike, she was immediately bent over her phone. “What are you doing?” I asked. “I’m posting this on Facebook,” she replied. I was dismayed. She was distracted from our limited time together and didn’t even ask how I felt about her sharing our experience so publicly. When I shared my feelings with her, she thankfully understood. Sometimes, not everything needs to be shared. 

Creating and enjoying experiences is a wonderful thing. Sharing experiences can be fine, too. I might suggest, though, that it’s also important to be present, to be mindful. To observe, appreciate, and learn from your experiences. How valuable will collecting experiences really be to you if at the end of a year, you look back on your amassed photos and social media posts and don’t even remember what you did?

Make your experiences worthwhile to and for you. Put making memories first in that equation. Live large, but live in the moment. Who knows – it might even change your actual experience altogether.

Hollis Thomases provides outsourced content leadership and production for fast-growing travel technology and mobility companies. She develops (and/or collaborates on) Content Strategy, Editorial Calendaring, Content Production, Content Distribution, PR & Marketing Communications, and Sourcing and Managing relevant internal and external talent. Request access to her private online portfolio through LinkedIn or by emailing [email protected].