April 1st, 2008
What Causes Social Network Fatigue (SNF)?
by Joshua Porter | 
9 Comments
For most people using the web on a regular basis, joining social networks has become an everyday activity. I’m certainly joining lots of them myself. When a new service sprouts up that sounds interesting, my curiosity gets the better of me and I dutifully go through the motions of signing up for it. The process goes like this: enter a username, choose a password, and in some cases even enter more personal information. After I do that, I go through the process of finding anybody on the service that I know. Chances are there are at least a few of my friends already using the service but I have no way of discovering them easily.
But then something interesting happens: I hit an invisible wall, tire of the service, and forget to go back. I call this phenomenon the Fade…as I slowly fade away from using the service regularly. And, days or weeks later when I realize that I’ve faded away from yet another service, it serves as a painful reminder that so much of my time is spent managing connections instead of enjoying being connected.
I’m not alone in this. This problem has become so widespread they even have a name for it: Social Network Fatigue (SNF):
n. Mental exhaustion and stress caused by creating and maintaining an excessive number of accounts on social networking sites.
What causes social network fatigue?
- Repetitive motion: We do the same things over and over: create an account, add our favorite things to our profile, try to find friends, add some (but never all) friends, wait for something to happen. It’s a repetitive cycle that, when we realize we’re going through it yet again, reminds us that we’re not being productive, but repetitive.
- Too many things to remember: After we sign up for a new network, we have to remember that we did and know how to get back there. If we do remember to check back, we have to remember the username and password that we used to create the account. With only a few accounts, this is easily done. But after you’ve joined a dozen or so social networks and the thought that you might want different passwords for some of them enters your mind, this becomes a real challenge.
- Wasted time: With more and more social networks to manage, the time we have left to enjoy interacting with friends dwindles. The other morning I woke up, checked my social networks, and then realized that I had wasted 30 minutes simply managing my accounts, not really getting anything useful done.
- Lack of consistency between networks: One of the biggest problems between social networks is that people we have signaled as friends on one network aren’t our friends on another. For example, my Facebook friends list isn’t even close to my LinkedIn contacts list, though both contain people who are important to me. This lack of consistency is incredibly frustrating, as it not only means more repetitive motion of friending them again, but it also makes us think twice about who is where.
The involved process of recreating our identities on multiple services leads to frustration and eventually exhaustion. Who knew that surfing the web could be so difficult?
[...] interesting read on Social Network Fatigue: http://www.ownyouridentity.com/2008/04/01/whats-the-real-cause-of-social-network-fatigue-snf/ The only solution: opening up for more liquidity between [...]
The main thrust of social networks thus far has been to say to folks “Try our one size fits all service and bring your friends over”. It’s no wonder that SNF sets in because why would I want to socialize with the same set of friends in x number of places?
But if a networking site focuses on a particular area that allows me to connect with OTHER people who share my interests, I wouldn’t mind signing up and participating.
I think this is a matter of more users having to truly feel the pain of social networking fatigue. I would venture to guess that 80% of Facebook users are only on one or two other social networks. Once more truly useful sites go into the mainstream and get widely used, I think the pressure to open up will make addressing these problems good for business rather than bad for business.
I opined a little bit about the annoyance factor this morning:
http://socialgraphtheory.com/2008/dont-be-creepy-dont-be-annoying
Just launched that blog recently too, although I bow to the ridiculous all-star lineup over here.
@Vix I agree, I think the future will be having one persistent identity that I own and that can interact with potentially thousands of niche networks focusing on any particular area, where, if I want, I can choose to bring my friends (at a granular level) over or meet other people who share that interest. The Internet is the platform and the choice will be with me.
@Luigi Congrats on the new blog, I’m now a subscriber! Although I’ll argue with you on the use of the word graph, it sounds so clinical and as though fixed from outside, whereas friendship is so much more messy than that. More of an emotional response on this one I guess.
I think that you’re right that as other sites become more widely used, we’ll see SNF growing. However, as I put in my behemoth of a post above, I’m not sure whether the major social networks are in a place where they could open up if they wanted to, whether it is bad for business or not. Either way, we’ll keep doing our thing and see if Chi.mp can encourage them to open up a little at least!
I quite like this idea of SNF and will have to look into it more. Today I wrote an article that may interest you. It deals with my idea of “The labyrinthine self” and the “mish-mash self” that are created through our extension into social networking sites.
Thank you for opening SNF. Having just signed up to Friendfeed and shared some feeds, I have already become overwhelmed by the stream of “everyone.”
jamie
http://eyeslitcrypt.wordpress.com
The value add has to have a dimension of ’synthesis’. The fallout factor you described is when the effect is the opposite. We’re trying to get more connections to meaningful conversations — not just more connections.
@Paula - I’m intrigued by your use of “synthesis”. Could you say more about that, or point me to more? I think I know what you’re saying, but it’s hard to articulate it.
[...] društvenih meža” - Social Networks Fatigue. Korisnicima Interneta jednostavno postaje dosadno da iznova kreiraju naloge na novim mrežama, da čekaju da se nešto desi dok ponovo pozivaju svoje [...]
So, this is the feeling I have been having every time I get a request from someone I know in real to join yet another network or social platform!
Basically, I have limited myself to 3 social networks and reject all requests to join others, explaining the sender that I already belong to me-too services that I’m totally satisfied with and don’t want to get confused by spreading my online presence even more.
My other problem is to manage all these various avatars of myself peppered all over the Web, many of them having been inactive for years. Fortunately, some of the services that I was registered to using them simply closed, thus taking away these accounts. But still, I don’t see any easy solution to this diversity and the need to keep a consistent presence on the Web, while at the same time ensuring a maximum security for your privacy. I guess, basic common sense and a little bit of thinking before registering for any new hyped-service should be the first reflex.