Checking out other people’s profiles on social media sites? Apparently, you aren’t alone. New research led by a Harvard Business School professor shows 80% of clicks on Facebook are from people viewing content on their friend’s pages.
While Facebook likes to tout their site as a conduit for sharing and connecting with friends and family who may go by the way side because of distance, schedules or other complications, the reality seems to be quite different. It appears to have more to do with our habit of being stalkers.
Harvard Business School professor, Mikolaj Jan Piskorski is publishing a book on social media behavior. His research shows that people are using social media more to see what others are doing than to post about themselves. While 80% of Facebook activity is regarding the post and pages of friends, less than 10% is related to our own posts.
According to Piskorski, anonymously searching (stalking) content of our social media friends isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Searching for commonalities with our online friends is low risk and eliminates some social awkwardness.
