Attentional Capture, Morality, and Social Media: An Insight Into What Motivates People to Use Social Media
Capturing Attention in Social Media
There is no doubt that with 3 billion social media users around the globe, there is something about logging into a social media platform of choice that captures the attention of people on a global scale. What motivates you to use social media? I asked this question to a handful of people on my personal social media account. Sharon, a close friend I’ve known for years answered that she initially didn’t even want a social media account, but that her son had created one for her regardless. In the beginning, she used her account to “send birthday wishes, share what was going on in her life, and read about what others were doing.” Being a person of religious background, she also shared that it was a good place to see and act upon prayer requests. Additionally, sharing pictures was difficult for her as she only used her PC to log into and use her social media account. Her husband, Les, eventually helped her to set up a smartphone which is when, in her own words, “Facebook then became a place to share pictures.” She explained that in the last few years, she’s been on social media a lot more and prefers “virtual people watching” over watching television.
However, over the last year and during the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, her understanding of social media transformed from what was simple entertainment to one of concern for society due to the civil unrest we have seen on a global scale.
“Since Covid and ‘civil unrest’, I have seen people change- turn vile. I post a lot less personal stuff, a lot less pictures and try to be light in what I perceive to be a real darkness. I tend to keep my business much more to myself, I have no desire to jump on bandwagons. As far as I can tell, pure, vile hatred (a hatred that really can’t be explained beyond a few incidents) has gulped up so many. A part of me sort of is following the theory of, “keep your friends close, your enemies closer.’”
For Sharon, what began as a way to connect with others is now something that she uses with caution to avoid conflict and immorality according to her own personal beliefs. Others who responded to my question stated similar answers — that their usage of social media stemmed from wanting to stay connected with family and friends, but is now almost a “scary” place for them to visit because of current events. One person who lives in a rural Montana town states that he wishes he could “ditch it all” and go live in the mountains. He expresses feelings of gratitude for being as secluded as he is.
According to a study conducted by Brady, Gantman, & Van Bavel, (2020), “attentional capture” is a term used to define what captures the attention of social media users. Their study illustrated that “moral and emotional content have a high potential to capture attention because both emotional and moral stimuli are motivationally relevant. A stimulus is motivationally relevant if it can affect attainment of a goal. Stimuli that affect goal attainment tend to be prioritized in visual attention. Moral stimuli are motivationally relevant because morality fulfills numerous goals, including the need to belong in social groups and the need to believe in a “just” world, and there is evidence that moral stimuli capture attention more than non-moral stimuli does” (pg. 746–747).
Why is this important? Social media is driven by interacting with posts and others users with the same or similar views. Without this important aspect, using social media might seem pointless. There would be no difference between picking up a local newspaper and logging in to scroll through your news feed. People are more likely to become interested when they know they can share their opinion regardless of whether it is positive or negative. Additionally, when people feel a sense of belonging, they feel empowered.
One might ask “what separates moral stimuli from emotional stimuli?” Are people more likely to interact with a social media post based on their moral convictions or their emotional responses to them when presented with visual stimuli that may trigger either psychological response? While there is no concrete answer to this — people do react from emotion, and are likely to respond on social media with an emotional response if their moral convictions are challenged — there is no doubt that at times moral compass and emotional responses may seem intertwined.
With this in mind, it is important to also understand that social media is a perfect platform for “impression formation” — for example, a political candidate may use Facebook or Twitter to touch on subjects they know are sensitive topics for their constituents and use this as a means to build their “good moral compass” as they explain how they will combat specific issues that are relevant on a societal level, with the ultimate goal being to earn votes. This is a perfect example of how capturing the attention of individuals on social media by tapping into known moral concerns may play a primary role in politics on social media and thus capture the attention of social media users. Whatever your reason is for logging in, it is clearly driven by more than surface desires. Social media is a powerful global technology that can drive people to, in some circumstances, unknowingly alter elements of their own self-schemas with the primary intention of being to benefit agendas for more than just political gain.
Indeed, for social media content creators, challenges in capturing attention are many. Three, in particular, pertain to the following: 1. Coming up with consistently good content. 2: Understanding that sometimes quantity is indeed better than quality. And, 3: Getting content to a large social audience (Peters, 2016). Managing social media accounts on a professional or organizational manner can be a full-time job, and learning the ropes of how it works and what exactly makes users tick, as we’ve established, can be tricky and sometimes seemingly impossible. While many people use social media for social justice agendas, others simply log in for entertainment purposes and staying connected with family and friends. Social media is constantly evolving and transforming into what society sees as acceptable and normal — but engaging its users is a task not to be taken lightly.
Solving these issues persists of one’s ability to stay creative and original, a tough feat in a world full of retweets — however, there are solutions that people can utilize in order to get the most out of their social media experience. The following are solutions to the above challenges: 1: In terms of creating consistent content that is unique, creating a checklist that includes such things as curating, creating, scheduling, monitoring, responding, updating, and reusing content across several different social profiles may be effective. Additionally, remaining open and transparent is equally important — people love knowing there is a “real person” behind a profile or post and by giving them some insight into who you are will evoke real human interaction. 2: Sometimes quality takes the back seat when it comes to social media — not every post is going to be morally conscious or example setting — some posts are simply just to make a company, organization, or entity’s presence known. Routine and habit prove to be essential in social media when it comes to exposure and gaining attention. The more someone sees you post, the more likely they are to remember you, and the more inclined to interact they will become (Peters, 2016). 3: When confronted with how to get content to large social audiences, there really is no end to how creative one can become. One may email friends, family, and colleagues in the hopes of peaking their interest and share posts to other social media sites. Let’s say every one person on Twitter has 100 friends that follow them, and those 100 friends have 100 friends that follow them. Even if only 5% of the total friends share your content, that’s still a massive amount of shares and impressions.
Maintaining Engagement in Social Media
Now that we’ve identified what captures the attention of social media users, let’s explore how maintaining engagement in social media may be approached. According to Brady, Gantman, & Van Bavel, (2020), “‘Online social media environments are often described as an “attention economy,” as content must break through an immense stream of noise in order to be noticed’” (pg. 747). Not only is social media a powerful platform for news, passionate debates, viral memes and personal updates, it is additionally an extremely lucrative platform for the advertisement industry. Brady, Gantman, & Van Bavel (2020), state that social media news feeds are filled with $15 billion worth of advertisements bought annually by U.S. companies. They can range anywhere from home goods to political campaign ads. Because social media creates a great potential for the facilitation of social interaction (Hall-Phillips, Park, Chung, Anaza, & Rathod, 2016), the potential and facilitation for post-engagment is also heightened as users scroll through their news feeds. Companies see challenges that may be based on specific economy changes and how useful a product may be, but tap into economic current events that may be relational or contribute to buying patterns.
Advertising is much different now than in the past — people may choose to engage in a product post by commenting on the thread and reaching out to the company via instant messaging. Doing so creates an opportunity for individuals to maintain engagement in a specific product and the post that is made about it. Companies now have the opportunity to interact with their target audience, breaching norms and transforming into what may have seemed as impersonal to a more engaging, productive experience. This is one of many ways that may change the way in which people think about spending their money. It offers them an opportunity to form opinions about what brands and products are worthy of their attention and hard-earned dollar — a game changer on both sides of the spectrum. Companies are now held more accountable for their products and services by their consumers, and consumers now have a more accessible, interactive platform in which to make decisions about purchasing. Ultimately, social media platforms may be able to predict certain patterns in how people use their accounts and what they click on while they are active, which can be used to create impressionable posts that “speak” to the individual on a more personal level.
Social media engagement can also be seen through a non-commercial lens as well. Going back to attentional capture and how morals and emotions drive a person’s response to a particular post, engagement can also be defined as not only what captures someone’s attention, but keeps them engaged in the subject. According to Brady, Gantman, & Van Bavel, (2020), “More broadly, when forming impressions about people and groups, moral character is one of the primary dimensions to which people attend. For example, studies that experimentally manipulate the moral goodness of a target have found that participants form more positive impressions of the person when they learn the person is morally good, even if other dimensions (e.g., warmth) are also manipulated.”
Considering all of this information, it is no wonder that asking what and how attention is captured on social media, the posts that are made using this knowledge, what ethical implications may be present and how they impact society on a whole, as well as social media engagement — become a larger, deeper question that may be of importance on more than one level — for social media companies, social media users, consumers, individuals, research companies, and psychologists. Moreover, societal and world events may impact social media content, where posters may be tapping into “trending” moral issues with an ulterior motive of which may be used for engagement. This leaves the question of how data is tracked and how patterns in social media use are studied and used. Online privacy and security is increasingly perceived as compromised, begging the question to be asked — How do you use social media? It is no wonder that this question is becoming more and more important. Perhaps this article will offer some insight into your own personal reasons and give you the chance to analyze why social media is important to you.
References
Brady, W. J., Gantman, A. P., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2020). Attentional capture helps explain why moral and emotional content go viral. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149(4), 746–756. doi:10.1037/xge0000673; 10.1037/xge0000673.supp (Supplemental)
Hall-Phillips, A., Park, J., Chung, T., Anaza, N. A., & Rathod, S. R. (2016). I (heart) social ventures: Identification and social media engagement. Journal of Business Research, 69(2), 484–491. doi:https://doi-org.library.capella.edu/10.1016/j.jbusres.2015.05.005
Peters, B. (2016). Solving the 10 most common social media marketing challenges [blog post]. Retrieved from: https://buffer.com/resources/solving-the-10-most-common-social-media-marketing-challenges/
Williams, B. (2017). There are now over 3 billion social media users in the world — about 40 percent of the human population. Retrieved from https://mashable.com/2017/08/07/3-billion-global-social-media-users/#O4mCNSErZaqR
