Virality. Cracked.
“This is the best day of my life” he said when his post went viral.
And I am about to ruin it. Partially - at least.
When it comes to the concept of Conditioning, you’re probably most familiar with Pavlov's dog experiment (If not, look it up or Wiki here). It essentially demonstrates how one can create a pleasurable response with a neutral action (or the opposite) by linking actions together, through repeating simultaneously on a consistent basis. (Don't we all have some music tracks that make us feel one way or another solely because they trigger reminders of a certain point in life?).
Now, back to our Viral guy.
Virality offers confirmation, validation, and a sense of compliment, if you will.
However, if the guy only copied a funny clip that was going viral anyway, why would he be so 'pumped up' about HIS version going viral?
Conditioning.
The source of enjoying a “LIKE” going viral is rooted in our need for approval at a younger age. The positive feedback from surrounding people, is an indication that we’re doing the right things. A remuneration for doing well. Like when you reward a child with candy when they behave appropriately. But if we keep handing them candy, the child will grow to work FOR the candy, subsequently making the treat become the target.
The same thing happened with virality. It became a pleasurable target from which to gauge everything else, including our sense of purpose.
Like a candy. Missing its real purpose.
It’s human nature, and completely natural to enjoy every bit of it. I seek only to offer some perspective here.
Don’t take my word for it however. Just check out there, did anyone ever got ‘satisfied’ by any amount of candy? Nope. You always need and want more.
If 10 likes were exciting when you started, you now need 100 and if a 100 were enough you now need 1000, and so on. In fact, I bet #Oleg now needs 10,000 to feel somehow accomplished.
The reason is because there's no real value in the candy. It's sweet on the tongue and only there to serve a higher purpose. Set in our system, it serves to motivate us towards greater things. It's a button in the human mechanism, there to push us towards the better.
Is it not okay to enjoy candy? Yes, it is.
Just remember in the grand scheme of things, it’s merely candy.
Head of Data Analysis & Systems, Global Operational Risk
5 年YES. The problem with?confirmation, validation, and a sense of compliment, occurs when we use those externals to convince ourselves that we are "good" - why would we need to convince ourselves, if we were "good" to start with?? So we are not "good", but maybe if we get 100 likes, then we are at least a little bit better? And when some likes arrive, the dopamine kick does the rest, and we have successfully enslaved ourselves into the hamster wheel of the validation cycle. Well written!
Jinsea Real Estate - Sales And Leasing Consultant
5 年“Don't let it take over your emotions. Your real world. Your real targets”?? Gratitude returns our mind to peace. Reflection fulfills life with true purpose.
Federal-Level Public Sector Navigation Expert | Effective and Resilient Systems and Cities Expert | Spatial (Transportation, Urban, Housing, Infrastructure, Development) Planning and Integration Expert
5 年Good piece Nathan Fried I, only recently figured out how much people crave likes and yet are miserly with it... A family friend whose posts I like whenever I come across them on Instagram had to call me to ask why I like another friend's post so much and asked "are you dating her?"... I allowed her to round up and asked her "am I dating you?"... I think it is rather petty... I think, well my idea of likes, is to let your network see whatever you find interesting in the hope that it might be useful to any or some of them hence I shamelessly like posts that have content, depth, information, job opportunities, innovation, etc... I don't crave likes and don't measure anything in life by such inclinations... They are not that deep to me... I am beginning to wonder if I am alone in this line of thought... But I will stick to my approach as it gives me fulfillment that someone somewhere may connect with the liked post or comment... My LinkedIn family, keep posting good stuff... My several truck load of likes are waiting to be offloaded on your posts... Hugs