I'm going a little off topic today as I explore the nature of social networks and how they relate so remarkably well to Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Maslow was a social scientist and most of you will be familiar with his pyramidical diagram that starts with very basic physiological needs at the bottom such as food and water and ends up at the top with the concept of self-actualisation where humans will try to be the best that they can unhindered by the lower level needs.
Of course, not too many of us are self-actualised nor will we ever be.
Hierarchy of Needs 1.
Self-actualization (pyramid top) 2.
Esteem 3.
Love/ Belonging 4.
Safety 5.
Physiological (pyramid base) The basic concept is that is one level of needs is satisfied, one will try to achieve the next higher level of needs.
So if a person can satisfy their physiological needs, they then look to satisfy the next set being those of safety such as having shelter and having employment.
After these needs are satisfied, people look to have the love of a family or similar relationships; they want to belong.
It is only after they can satisfy these needs of belonging that people will look to self esteem and self worth as an important requirement in their lives.
Enter the social networks.
There have been other methods since the dawn of the Internet to bring people together such as bulleting boards, chat rooms and email and all of these have been used for ways to socially interact online.
However, nothing compares to modern social networks such as MySpace and Facebook when it comes to people trying to meet their Esteem needs.
The drivers behind the success of these social networks have been the interactions between different people.
What is uncanny about this is how it has affected people of all ages.
Everyone and I mean everyone takes great pride in counting the number of friends that they have in their social network relative to others.
People feel a strong sense of satisfaction if they see a flurry of activity on their profile with messages or news targeted at them.
One's level of self-importance rises greatly when there is a steady stream of people wanting to know and befriend them.
And one starts to panic if there has been no activity for a few days.
One can only imagine that if more and more people are able to meet their self-esteem needs through these social networks and are ready to move up the pyramid, we might suddenly see a world of self-actualised do-gooders walking away from their PC's and mobiles striving forward to make the world a better place!