Mr Branding: Study Finds People Are Losing the Desire to Stand Out Compared to 20 Years Ago: Is Social Media to Blame?"

Tuesday, November 12, 2024

Study Finds People Are Losing the Desire to Stand Out Compared to 20 Years Ago: Is Social Media to Blame?"

According to a new study published in Collabra: Psychology, that analyzed data of over one million people between 2000 and 2020 and found that people are slowly losing motivation to stand out among people and be unique. According to the data, people are no longer defending their beliefs, have no desire to not follow rules and care about what other people think of them. People do not want other people to think differently about them so they do not express their opinions in public, mostly in online spaces.

There is also a rise in social anxiety among people which is making them sensitive to judgment. Researchers wanted to know why there is a decline in people desiring to be unique in the past 20 years. Study author, Bill Chopik says that use of social media has made people extremely cautious of what they want to say as they can experience backlash if they say the wrong thing. In a poll, 70% of people said that they self-censor what they want to say online because they think their opinion might be too controversial.

To test out if not having a desire to stand out is a recent phenomena or not, the researchers organized an analysis of large-scale survey data of over 1.3 million participants who completed the Gosling-Potter Personality Project’s need-for-uniqueness questionnaire between 2000 and 2020. The survey focused on three important points of concern: willingness to break rules, not having concern about what other people think and expressing personal beliefs in public.

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There were 32 statements in the need-for-uniqueness questionnaire, with scales from one to five. The researchers calculated the average scores for each statement. Then these scores were all analyzed year by year over the 20 years period. According to the data, there was a huge decrease in all three points of concern in 20 years. The biggest decline was seen in people’s willingness to defend their personal beliefs in public (6.52%). This shows that people are no longer expressing their opinions in public as they can turn out controversial too.

This could tell that individuals have adopted self; censorship and are afraid that they will be criticized if they express their opinions in public. This decline can also be due to an increase in the use of social media as the opinions of people are judged from every angle if they express them online. There also a 4.28% increase in concerns over how others perceive people. People have become more socially awkward and cannot handle being judged by other people. Now people want to get validation and acceptance from other people. People are also less willing to break rules now. They no longer have the desire to challenge social norms or social expectations. They do not want to become unique and they avoid social repercussions at all costs.

Despite this extensive research, it has some limitations too. As the study is only done over the period of 20 years, we do not have any idea about historical trends. If a full research is done, it can fill the gaps of this study and fully capture people's behaviors, and can help uncover how and why people do not want to be different or stand out anymore.