Facebook Events: How ‘interested’ are you really?
In class we learned about how showing the list of people who responded ‘Going’ or ‘Not going’ to an online invitation for an event can influence the invitees’ decisions. The more people that respond ‘Going,’ the more benefits there are, so you have a higher incentive to attend. The more people that respond ‘Not going,’ the less benefits there are, so you have a lesser incentive to attend. This makes sense, you wouldn’t want to go to an event where only a tenth of the invitees showed up, and you wouldn’t not want to go to an event if all of your friends were going. But what if there were more options than ‘Going’ and ‘Not going’?
Some day last week, as I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed, I saw a post which said that one of my friends was interested in an event for a grand opening of a new pastry shop in NYC. Without much thought, I also tapped on ‘Interested.’ Then, I stopped to think for a moment- why did I do that? I’m not even going to be in the city when this event is occurring. And even if I was, there was a 1% chance that I would actually go. I’m sure many other people can relate, how many of those ‘interested’ events are you genuinely interested in and want to go to? Why do we mark ‘interested’ for events we know we have a very slim chance of actually going to?
This article from students at the University of Edinburgh examines the types of events which college students are guilty of clicking ‘interested’ in. From club nights, guest lectures, concerts, plays, to festivals, all of these events indicate to everyone else that you’re ‘successfully busy’ and ‘taking advantage of all that your college has to offer.’ If all your friends marked ‘interested’ for ‘EZoo’ but you hate EDM, you’re probably going to indicate you’re interested too. After all, you gotta stay in the loop. This article examines why exactly people will mark down ‘interested’ despite having no intention of going. Clicking ‘interested’ gives you the freedom of choice to go, multiple options for deciding which event you could actually attend in one day, and allows you to present yourself in a certain way- interested in a guest speaker lecture about artificial intelligence and robots, wow so smart! Interested in a DIY reusable tote bag workshop, wow so sustainable! Interested in a fundraiser to raise money for kids in third world countries, wow so generous!
The reasons that you’re interested in an event are no longer limited to information cascades, informational effects, and direct benefits effects, but also encompass the indications of marking interested for an event- what you’re telling your Facebook friends when you say you’re interested. As more and more people mark interested for an event, you also want to hop on and join them, besides gaining potential benefits like talking/mingling with other people if you were actually going to attend, you also give off the impression to your friends that you are an active person within your community.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/amitchowdhry/2015/11/03/facebook-replaces-maybe-with-interested-on-events/#7247c3b75ca7