Wow. I’ve been away from Steemit for around two months and so many changes have occurred. Apparently there’s a change coming to the pay out structure, there’s new games like Steem Monsters, people have come and gone or really slowed down on posting, others have joined and taken off at a sprint. Recently I was trying to sell a friend on joining and she took one look at the platform and said “Oh, it really reminds me of myspace back in the day. It does look like posting whatever you create would be kinda tedious though.”

Up until recently I have never really compared Steemit to Myspace as a social media platform. This is mainly due to never using social media. (I have never seen it relevant to my career or social life and above all hated the invasion of privacy and how user data was managed.) But in many ways there are some similarities here. It’s the first big player in cryptocurrency social media, in the same way Myspace was aimed at teenage users Steemit is aimed at crypto users, it is being discovered by people outside of the original target market, it’s growing….more or less. But both platforms can easily be called trail blazers in the field of social media.

Time passed after the launch of Myspace and by June of 2006 it passed Google by as the most visited site. I’m not optimistic that Steemit will ever reach this dizzying height but would see it as cool if it did. But eventually Myspace drifted into obscurity and was replaced by easier to use applications like Face Book and Twitter. The real key to those two entity’s success wasn’t just their easy to use applications though. What made them become what they are today was the easy access to the instant. Their ability to be addictive. Like a drug.

Most of us are aware of the fact that the need to be socially accepted is a powerful force. Sure many of us like to believe that the opinions of others aren’t relevant to how we see ourselves but this is normally us being dishonest with ourselves. The need for social acceptance is practically written into our DNA as a species. For a significant part of our evolution being socially accepted in the tribe was what decided life or death. The tribal configuration is our evolutionary stable model as a species. Like dogs in packs, cattle in herds, lions in prides, etc. In today’s society we don’t tend to outwardly acknowledge this as a huge player in our survival as social creatures. Yet we create political groups, sports groups, gangs, even identities based on music genres. When we are liked it feels good, when we aren’t it feels bad, when we are accepted or part of a group it feels good. What’s behind that good feeling is one thing. Dopamine.

Anytime we as human beings find ourselves being liked or praised or accepted we experience a small hit of dopamine if we see the praise or acceptance as personally rewarding or fulfilling. Dopamine is a powerful neurotransmitter that acts as a messenger between brain cells. When you have that amazing slice of cake and it feels good that’s dopamine, a cigarette after a meal and that settling nicotine hit is our friend of dopamine again. Alcohol, cocaine, marijuana, MDMA, all cause huge spikes in dopamine production. The same goes for that repetitive song you may like or television program. Dopamine helps us to repeat actions that we find rewarding so we will repeat them again. This of course is crucial for us as a species so we know where to find food, water, and want to reproduce.

In many ways our need to feel accepted and rewarded is easily hacked. Trent Harris who is the former design ethicist for Google said that traditional feed structure on social media sites is patterned off of slot machines. You never know if you will be rewarded by the content, but the chance you may keeps you coming back much like gambling. Neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky has done extensive research into dopamine’s effects on behavior. Sapolsky used monkeys as test subjects. He taught them that if they were to push a button ten times a light above the button would come on and a treat would be given, each time measuring the dopamine response in the small primates brains when they were rewarded. He then changed the set number of button pushes to a random sequence where the reward would arrive at 5, 20, 8, etc button presses. The more random and more anticipation the monkey was subjected to the higher the dopamine spike before it even received the treat.

The same thing that kept the monkey pushing on the button to switch on the light is the same thing that keeps us refreshing the page to check likes on a post, pulling the slot machine handle, pressing like, waiting on a response to a text etc.

But how is Steemit a potential pioneer into the frontiers of the dark side of social media? Adding monetary reward to an established addictive behaviour is the answer. Tokenising approval. Could it be that Steemit is a testing or proving ground to measure the effect so that the next platform can be streamlined to make the user experience more addictive? There are many platforms out there at the moment who are already positioning to compete in the tokenised approval economy to do just that. Face Book has even voiced the desire to dip a toe. Could this be because the combination of combining monetary reward with the reward of social approval is recognised as an incredibly potent formula? Could be. Data is the new oil/gold after all.

It may seem that I’m bashing Steemit here. I’m not. I enjoy using the platform. Through it I have met some truly wonderful people from who I have learned a great deal and interact with off of the platform. There is a light side basically. I do like the lack of censorship, the self regulation, community mined people, the content… I happily admit I feel rewarded when I engage. I am selective in what I post about my personal life, understand after reading the user agreement that my data is being collected, can be sold on by Steemit, and am not to fussed. Their not going to pull messages and contacts off of my phone like Face Book or track my location outside of my IP. Basically as far as invasiveness goes it’s no different than E Bay user terms and agreements in my opinion so not bad all in all.

But is it possible for all the positives to someday be outweighed by the negatives in tokenising social interactions? Should we use things like Twitter and Face Book as examples in how these platforms grow and impact people? I.e. going from being entertaining, to part of a lifestyle, to a vital apparatus in social interactions, to altering how we socialize as a species? Is that already a byproduct of social media today? What will adding money to the mix do?

I’ve always believed people should live how they want to as long as they leave me alone and don’t force their choices on my person. Or their views. Legalize everything, let people be responsible, share what you have and be humble in the sharing. I basically prefer kindness and freedom over regulation and cynicism. I’m not being cynical in this post by the way. I’m pointing out that there are dark possibilities and really look forward to hearing from you guys on what you think in the comments. I try to keep up with comments and vote for meaningful ones as my way of saying thank you spending the time to read. I also try to check out the blogs of those who comment as it’s a rewarding practice and I tend to do it as a bit of a Steemit habit. It usually turns up cool posts as well. There are some great people here.

Well guys that’s it for now. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my humble post. Many blessings and as always Steem on.

image credits:
Youtube
Washington Post
Trak.in.com
BigNewsNetwork.com