Facebook

It is drummed into us from a young age that if we are hungry we should eat a proper meal, not a chocolate bar. We’re taught this in order to keep our bodies healthy but do we know how to keep our mind healthy?

I recently attended an interesting talk where the effect of social media on mental well-being was discussed. The idea was being put forward that the positive feedback people receive through social media forums such as Facebook and Twitter (e.g. ‘likes’, comments or retweets) could contribute to better mental well-being as people said, when interviewed shortly after receiving the feedback, that these interactions gave them positive feelings.

However, this got me thinking and I wondered how these people felt a while later. Was this feedback enough to fulfil their needs for social contact or were they left feeling a bit low and wanting more?

I personally feel that the positive feelings that a person receives from a social media interaction can be much like the sugar rush that they would get from a chocolate bar. They think that it will be what they want, but soon after the high of getting it they realise they have not solved their hunger. In terms of food, we then know that it is a proper meal we need. However, had we not been taught this would we have simply gone for another chocolate bar? I feel that this could potentially be the harmful cycle that many people, particularly those who are less outgoing, may go through each day. Prior to the influx of social media they would have invested their time in interacting in ‘real world’ relationships. However, I wonder if many people may now be reaching out to social media channels as the easy option to try and gain that social contact that people need to stay happy. The concern is that they are then not being fulfilled by the results and perhaps can’t break the cycle of looking for their social fulfilment online. With the statistics for depression set to rise further over the coming years I feel that social media could potentially have a part to play in this.

Obviously there are marginalised groups of people for whom the world of social media is a genuine lifeline to gaining social contact. However, I feel that for the majority of people this is not the case and it could easily be that social media is resulting in as many low feelings as it is highs.

I think that social media has a role to play in peoples mental well-being, which could be both in a positive and negative way. However, this is essentially an online world that we have created and I think that healthy and unhealthy behaviour surrounding social media is something that needs to be brought the forefront. People live out their lives online more and more every day and it seems that this can only be set to be an increasingly current debate.

We were delighted to have Antony Mayfield present to us on Friday, about privacy and his book ‘Me and My Web Shadow’. Gradually as anonymity begins to fade our web shadow/digital footprint/online persona is added to the list of on-going things we need to manage. In order to maintain a realistic impression on the web; the responsibility ultimately lies with us to manage this, even if we don’t want it to!

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This article, written by Guy Stephens, was originally published on BeingGuy1067 on 10/12/10 and is republished here with permission.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Facebook recently and I’ve got to admit I was a definite late comer. I use it to keep in touch with family and friends who are scattered around the globe. Sadly, the days of receiving a letter in the post have gone, and now we’re reduced to scanning status updates on people’s walls. But I digress…

What I have been thinking about is the idea of companies talking about providing help ‘at source’, particularly with reference to Facebook. The idea is a very simple one. Wherever my customer is, that’s where I need to be to help them at their hour of greatest need: now. Read more…

On November 18th, Foviance presented at the Digital Fundraising conference 2010. The event included a number of insightful talks providing ideas, insight and case studies of amazing fundraising efforts that have been successful online. Along with Catriona Campbell, I helped chair the afternoon sessions. These focused on providing details of how the digital space could be used to maximise fundraising opportunities online and they really did demonstrate roaring success. Read more…

A multi-channel world creates more routes for complaint about products and services every day. As each new platform evolves, so our avenues of complaint are broadening from purely manual actions to largely virtual ones.

It’s still possible to let our views be known manually through a letter or even face-to-face if we so desire. Most of us are perhaps more familiar with expressing opinions via electronic channels, such as telephone, fax, e-mail, forums or blogs. But now more people than ever before are also venting their spleens on digital or mobile platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, TripAdvisor –even FourSquare, Google Maps, and in the future on emerging applications such as augmented reality. Read more…

By Chris Holmes

Gordon Brown’s recent leetspeek (mp3 podcast) leading up to the Global Investment Conference (GIC) has sparked renewed calls for tax breaks for the UK computer gaming industry. The PM stated that the UK games industry was “the most important in Europe”, and that UK developers are “by far the biggest producers of computer games in Europe”, going on to promise that there would be “new commitments of investment off the back of [the GIC] conference”. Interesting words, encouraging perhaps for some, but is it just more talk? Considering The Digital Britain report was full of high praise for the industry but so far has yielded few tangible initiatives, and a previous request from the industry for tax breaks failed to get a mention in the Chancellor’s December 2009 pre-Budget report, one could be forgiven for (quite skeptically) thinking “the cake is a lie”. Read more…

By Chris Holmes

Facebook turned six recently and celebrated the milestone by giving its homepage yet another makeover, this time to “improve navigation to and discovery of commonly used features”. Six years is a long time on the interweb but, even still, Facebook has made impressive and significant gains in that time. It currently sits at number four on the list of biggest names on the web (behind Google, Microsoft and Yahoo, respectively) and with over 350 million users (and growing fast) it is poised to very soon become number three. It’s become the “face”, as it were, of the social media space, if not the brain. Read more…

By Billie Andersen

An article was published the other day that questioned how worthwhile it was for companies to spend money on social media , in light of a new report that discussed the predicted increase in social media spend in 2010. According to the article, companies have spent more time on social media this year than ever before and that more companies are focusing on this medium as a marketing strategy.  
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