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Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

bfi.uchicago.edu

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Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#61
post #50

One of the contributing factors here is that we keep calling these "social networks," but that's not really what they're being used for. If you look at an average user's feed, it probably breaks down into 30% traditional advertising, 20% nontraditional advertising (via influencers and friends shilling for their employers and promoting their side hustles), 30% content by people they have no social relationship with (c…

[deleted]

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#62
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have literally asked people "would you pay $5 for this?" they say yes, then I tell them to buy it and they say no. When this kept happening I realised the only thing that matters in sales is... actually making sales. Everything else is window dressing.

> then I tell them to buy it and they say no Were you asking them to open their wallet and hand you 5 dollars and that's it, or were you asking them to go to an unfamiliar website, click around, enter their credit card information, and then spend time learning how to use the software, and do it all right now?

I think that's still a good measure of things. What people say they'd do, and whether they'll actually do it involves all of these details, the time spent, friction, mental burden, sheer changing of mind at the last minute etc.

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#63
post #41

How this level of title editorializing is possible on HN? It just picks Tiktok purely as a bait, but actual research includes multiple websites and also luxury brands.

Email hn@ycombinator.com if you have concerns. The mods do care and will fix editorialized titles pretty quickly, but they can't keep up with everything as it is submitted. Emailing them helps keep the site clean from clickbait titles!

Re: Large shares of consumers use social media out of a fear of missing out

#68
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would that really help? There's a virtually unlimited supply of "stuff" one could desire & buy. There might not be a new iPhone this year, but would you look at that shiny new watch/console/TV/etc. Either you care about owning status symbols or you don't, I don't think taking one of them off the market would make a difference.

The peer pressures to have an iPhone within a lot of groups are very real and strong. Having a "Blue bubble" is shunned in many circles [1]. It's a sad reality. A part of it is likely iPhones managed to create a class of their own whereas nobody cares what brand of 65" TV someone has or who designed their 300 m^2 house. [1]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-apples-imessage-is-winning-...

I thought it was green bubbles which are shunned. In any case, it seems like a good way to get vain and vapid people to self-select their way out of your life. Would you really want to be friends with the sort of people who exclude others for consumer choices like that? Dreadful.
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