Have You Had Your Squirt Today?
Has Facebook Jumped the Shark?
Facebook stock is falling and the once shiny company, while still a social media behemoth, is not growing as fast as it once was.The same thing that happened to Happy Days may be happening to Facebook.According to brain and behavior scientists, when you see something new and shiny your brain rewards you with a shot of dopamine -- a brain chemical that makes people feel pleasure.When you see it (or something like it) over and over again that shot of dopamine is not enough to trigger that same feeling of pleasure.. So after a while the thing becomes "old" and "familiar" and it eventually falls off our radar. This explains why diets fail, relationships sour, most sequels suck, styles change, TV shows get cancelled and why disco died.Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and other social media attract users because they are dopamine delivery systems. People are constantly checking their social media platforms for updates looking for what one scientist calls "dopamine squirts". Over time those users need a larger "squirt" to get the same effect.When a dopamine delivery system fails to provide an adequate dopamine squirt it makes it harder to keep users interested. And that tends to scare investors away.Let's pick on Facebook for a moment...There is one thing that Facebook does that makes it an effective dopamine delivery system;It allows you look at cute photos and check on the ever changing status of your real friends and family...While some might consider that a waste of time it also may explain why Facebook is so popular....and there's one thing that Facebook does that makes it an ineffective dopamine delivery system;It forces you to look at annoying ads from advertisers and unwanted status updates from people who you really don't even know (your "virtual" friends).Facebook, by sharing personal data with advertisers, has been accused of trying to “monetize” its users. The more this happens the less the users will enjoy the time they spend on the site. And that tends to scare investors away.What about you? Are you spending more or less time on Facebok these days?