Popular

by Mitch Prinstein

  To be clear, social media is not inherently bad. There may be some ill-advised ways of interacting on it and opportunities for abuse, but that can be said about almost any social activity. In fact, some suggest that social media may provide rapid coping support for those who have suffered adversity. It may help to establish social connections among those who may not have access to similar peers in their community. Social media may even help teens develop impression management skills or efficient communication patterns that may prove beneficial years later. Social media is not a problem. But it may be worth considering how it has begun to change our societal values at a much broader level. This is an issue we can address, because if we don’t, we may find ourselves surprised at what has become hot, and what is not.

  —

  My wife and I recently attended a dinner party. It was a great event. The food was delicious, the wine was flowing, and our laughter became so loud that we woke up our hosts’ kids. None of us knew more than a few of the other guests before we arrived, but we were all close friends by time dessert was served. It was around that time that a man sitting across the table from us remarked that he was disappointed that his wife had decided to stay home.

  “Is she OK?” we asked.

  “Oh no, sorry,” he explained. “She’s not home sick. She’s at home live-tweeting a TV show so she can get more followers on her Twitter.”

  This incident reminded me of another occasion when I was at a restaurant with friends and observed nearby diners waiting to see how many “likes” they got on a photo of their dinner plate rather than talking to one another.

  Or the time I was standing in front of the Sydney Opera House in Australia and overheard a group of friends debating which selfies would be best to post on their Facebook profiles rather than pictures of one another.

  For me, each case highlighted the differences between the two types of popularity and made me wonder whether we had begun to lose sight of the one that really matters. In each of these instances, and in so many others that we all surely can recall, it seemed that people were choosing to invest in visibility, prominence, and immediate social rewards rather than in more meaningful social connections. People were, in short, choosing to pursue status over likability.

  Some aspects of social media offer an excellent way to make friends, share mutual interests, and build relationships. Social media also provides an easily accessible platform where we can celebrate our achievements with peers and elicit social support when we feel down. It offers a route to track down old acquaintances and coworkers with whom we hope to reconnect, and a chance to get more detail about others’ lives than we might have time to share over a quick phone call or lunch. With every click that enables us to truly invest in others, express positive affect, or share a sentiment that helps our peers more than ourselves, we are also engaging in an activity that will make us more likable.

  But we all know that that’s not the only kind of popularity that social media promotes, nor is it the only kind that people log in to obtain. Our online “friends” are not always people we are actually friends with or people we even know. On some platforms, there’s no attempt to even pretend that friendship is involved at all—the goal is simply to collect as many “followers” as possible, hundreds or even thousands of people who we know we will never meet and who will never know much of any substance about us. The goals are simply to be as visible as possible, to have as many people listen to us as possible, and to be as influential as possible. These are all classic markers of status.

  “Like” buttons are also something of a misnomer, depending on the context. To those who click them, they can be a way of expressing heartfelt support or genuine emotional connection. But for those who obsessively seek “likes” (or “favorites” or “notes”), they are often just an attempt to get the rush that comes from seeing that we were seen and approved of by as many people as possible. Those who use social media extensively will acknowledge that, as exciting as it may be to see that a specific friend may have “liked” a post, it can be just as rewarding, if not much more so, to learn that hundreds of unknown people “liked” a post as well.

  Ultimately our concern over living so much of our lives online should be less about how it affects us as individuals than its general repercussions on our culture. Although one can imagine an overdependency on seeking status online as eventually becoming problematic—and you probably know someone for whom this is true—for most of us, social media is used to feel a small status boost every now and then. That’s not so bad, particularly if we leverage our use of social media in ways that would make us likable at least as often as we seek recognition. Far more worrying is when the distinction between these two types of popularity gets lost among us as a society more generally. Whether you participate in social media or not, you know that rapid adoption of these platforms has had a profound effect on the world we live in and the kind of popularity that is valued.

  —

  In May 2015, Tiger Beat magazine featured a cover story for its teen audience titled “How to Be Social Media Famous!” Inside was a six-page spread detailing exactly how readers could achieve the kind of popularity that was positioned as the ultimate success for a teen today.

  It began with an article on the band 5 Seconds of Summer, revealing how fame, fortune, and millions of fans were the means by which each member “bounced back from unpopularity.” At first, they were all “loners,” “geeks,” and “invisible,” the article noted, but now “a whole lot of people like [them].”

  The feature went on to explain how to get as many followers as possible on social media. It urged readers to post as often as possible, take their phones everywhere they went, stay engaged with whatever is already big and popular, and so on.

  There were interviews with “teen celebrities,” each defined by the number of his or her followers. Many of their stories were the same: They were once sad and lonely, but now, with so many followers, they had found happiness. A sidebar encouraged kids to hire a social media manager if they wanted to find similar happiness. “This isn’t a casual hobby,” one manager advised. “It’s a career.”

  Adults get the same messages in their own media consumption. “Blow Up Your Feed: The 10 Commandments of Taking Instagram Food Pics,” the foodie magazine Bon Appétit advised its readers. The article in question offered tips designed to help Instagram users get the most “likes” as possible with their pictures of food. One came from a user highlighted as having 264,000 followers: “Foods that are universally popular and that people really want to eat always do well.” Another suggested, “Sweets and little treats appeal to the widest audience. Who doesn’t get excited when they see ice cream?” For its part, Forbes encouraged its readers to use “known hashtags” and to “like hundreds of random pictures from people in your target audience.”

  If we look away from the magazine rack, it may not surprise anyone that YouTube now includes over thirteen thousand different video tutorials on topics like “How to Take the Perfect Selfie.” In fact, the “selfie stick” market has become a multimillion-dollar industry worldwide. So many people take photos of themselves, and occasionally do so in dangerous situations, that the Russian government has released guidelines to reduce selfie-taking-related deaths. Cover Girl cosmetics has even released a line of makeup designed specifically to look good in selfie shots.

  In contrast, YouTube offers only about four hundred videos on “How to Be More Likable.” I watched a few, and ironically, most are actually about gaining status as well.

  Why should this trouble us? The answer lies in what we have learned from neuroscience. For instance, in the same UCLA study mentioned earlier, the researchers decided to examine their participants’ neural responses not only to their own photos they had posted on Instagram but also to a series of photos that the investigators had acquired. They included some images that depicted provocative subjects (aggressive gestures, inappr
opriately dressed teens, illegal substances) while others were of neutral ones (household objects, coffee, unfamiliar peers). Again, they randomly selected half of these pictures to ostensibly have been judged to be popular, with many “likes,” and half to have only a few “likes.”

  The results suggested that our interest in what is popular may be so strong that it can begin to undermine our values. When the participants viewed the provocative pictures that had gotten only a few “likes,” they responded in much the way you might hope or expect: they were unlikely to “like” the photos themselves, and the responses in their brains reflected activity in the prefrontal cortex, a region that activates when we hit the brakes and stop ourselves from engaging in impulsive acts. But when provocative photos were made to look popular, the response was just the opposite—adolescents were dramatically more likely to “like” the picture themselves. Moreover, simply seeing that the picture had many “likes” on social media reduced their prefrontal cortex activity, releasing the brain’s brakes. In other words, just by associating pictures with the number of “likes” they had ostensibly obtained, social media suddenly had made provocative acts “hot,” while neutral acts were “not.”

  This finding has serious implications. It suggests that the more we value status, the more our ability to distinguish between good and bad may be compromised. Popularity can become the only value that matters, and we will begin to confuse status for quality in ways that do not bode well for the century to come.

  CHAPTER 8

  Parenting for Popularity

  Can Mom and Dad Make a Difference, and Should They?

  Just outside Portland, Oregon, around the start of June each year, two hundred townsfolk gather in the local school auditorium for the kindergarten student showcase. The event is a time-honored tradition—a rite of passage for every resident who has ever attended elementary school there.

  It is an event that Peggy remembers vividly. About thirty years ago, she was standing onstage in that auditorium behind two rows of classmates as they took turns singing a verse from The Sound of Music songbook. But while her classmates smiled and waved to their families from the stage, Peggy hid in the back, emerging only when cued by the start of the melody to “My Favorite Things.” Suddenly Peggy’s palms became slick and warm. She walked slowly toward center stage as the children ahead of her sang their parts. By the time they had reached the “warm woolen mittens,” Peggy’s heart already was beating twice as fast as the music. She finally reached the front of the stage and looked out at the crowd of parents, teachers, and schoolmates all staring up at her. The lights were hot, she could hear her own breath, and it seemed as if the music slowed just as it came her turn to sing. Finally, she opened her mouth . . .

  Peggy did not enjoy her kindergarten year. Born to immigrant parents, she looked a little different from her classmates. Her body was noticeably rounder. Her hair was darker, and her clothes came from a secondhand store. Her parents didn’t know many others in their community, so Peggy usually played alone on the weekends. On occasions when she was able to convince her mother to take her to the neighborhood park, the visit always seemed to end in despair. While her mom read a book, some issue inevitably led to a shouting match between Peggy and the other kids.

  On that June morning of the school assembly, the choice of verse for Peggy was particularly unfortunate. As she began to sing she could hear snickers from her schoolmates in the front rows. Her voice quivered just as she reached the part about crisp apple strudel and schnitzel with noodles.

  “Piggy!” one child screamed.

  “She’s even bigger than Captain von Trapp!” shouted another.

  The whole first row laughed. The adults tried to hush the children, but they continued to taunt her. By the time the verse was over, Peggy’s cheeks were covered with tears, and she ran off the stage into the arms of her teacher.

  In the decades since the kindergarten showcase, Peggy hadn’t thought much about it, but as her daughter stood on that same stage, and the accompaniment to The Sound of Music began, the pain of that experience came flooding back. There stood her own child, dressed as an Austrian schoolgirl, and her turn to sing was approaching. Peggy could feel her own hands beginning to perspire.

  —

  Do you remember kindergarten? Can you picture the details of your classroom or your teacher? What were the other kids in your class like? Did you play with them or watch them from afar? Were they kind to you?

  Is there a particular incident or scene that stands out in your mind from back then? Why do you think this remains your clearest memory after so many years? What does that event mean to you?

  These questions were posed to a group of mothers by Duke professor Martha Putallaz as part of a study she conducted on children’s popularity. Each mother had a child in kindergarten at the time she was asked to participate. I once conducted a similar study, and like Putallaz, I found that mothers’ recollections of their own childhood peer experiences varied quite dramatically.

  “It reminds me of how important it is to have strong bonds with friends . . . it was a great time,” one participant wrote.

  “It reminds me how cruel and mean kids can be, and I always pray my own kids’ feelings don’t get hurt like that,” said another.

  A third replied, “I was somewhat insecure, cared what others thought, felt isolated.”

  Studies that ask mothers to recall their early experiences with peers reliably find that, based on their most salient memories, they fall into one of three categories. Putallaz found that one group of mothers had positive memories. When these women remembered kindergarten, they recalled their peers as a source of fun, happiness, and excitement. Over half of her respondents relayed stories with joyous, positive themes, with scarcely any trace of regret, fear, or sadness.

  As one woman wrote, “I had happy times with my friends . . . I felt confident and comfortable with myself when I was with them.”

  Other mothers’ memories were less pleasant. Putallaz divided these subjects into two groups. One included women whose recollections were of aggression, hostility, and meanness. In their accounts, their childhood peers were a source of ridicule and cruelty. Sometimes these themes were recalled in the context of an otherwise positive memory, but they were notable nevertheless when compared to those women whose recollections were completely positive.

  “It hurt so much,” one woman remembered. “The teasing was so antagonizing to me . . . it represents the pain we suffer as children to try to fit in, belong, and have people like us.”

  The third group of mothers had recollections that were characterized by anxiety or loneliness. The stories offered by these women involved unrequited longing for peers, feeling left out, and watching from the sidelines. These were experiences that many believed left them damaged years later.

  As one said, “It set a pattern for me that made me uncomfortable in groups of strangers.”

  After this group of mothers offered their own childhood peer memories, Putallaz then studied how their children fared in their own social lives at school. She asked their kindergarten classmates to nominate which children they liked most and which they liked least. She used this information to derive a score of each child’s popularity—the type of popularity based on likability. The results revealed that even with the small amount of information she had about each mother, Putallaz was able to predict which children would be most or least popular.

  Popularity was remarkably consistent across generations. Mothers who recalled their own peer experiences as positive had children who were above average in popularity. Mothers with memories of hostile experiences had unpopular children. But unexpectedly, the women with anxious or lonely memories had children who did not appear to be at all unpopular. In fact, children with anxious/lonely mothers were either of average popularity or, in some cases, just as well liked as the kids with positive moms.

  Putall
az’s results raise two interesting questions.

  Can popularity be inherited? If so, why do children of mothers with happy memories and those of mothers with anxious/lonely kindergarten recollections both do equally well with their peers?

  Of course, it’s impossible to ascertain whether the mothers accurately recalled their childhood experiences. Memories are not always reliable, and in this particular study, the recollections offered by mothers could have been as much a reflection of their children’s lives today as anything that occurred to them decades earlier. For this reason, Putallaz referred to the mothers’ recollections as “social frames”—lenses through which they view past, current, and future social experiences. What Putallaz found was that moms with positive social frames and those with anxious/lonely social frames were much more similar than might be expected in at least one important respect: both cared deeply about how their children interacted with peers. Specifically, both reported much stronger intentions to help their children become likable than the mothers with hostile social frames. And this seemed to make all of the difference.

  This leads to the two questions I am often asked by concerned parents: First, can they help make their children more popular? And second, should they?

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  The short answer to the first question is yes: parents can affect their children’s popularity in several ways. Some of these are well within our control—others are not.

  For instance, parents influence their kids’ popularity through genetics. No single gene can make a person popular, as far as we know, but a group of them seem to give some kids an edge and others a lifelong disadvantage.