Meshing and anchoring in social spaces

or, what you see when you scroll through Threads.

Have you been obsessed with threads?

If you haven’t heard, this is a new app from Instagram which is like twitter, there’s less functionality for now, but it lets you share links, have conversations and use imagery and videos.  Of course, I spent a lot of time with my head in my phone the weekend it launched watching everyone dive into conversation, but, as my friend put it… as a psychologist, it is my job to people watch.

What can psychology tell us about the way we make sense of these new online spaces?

This week’s episode is a delve into cyberpsychology, thinking about online identities, meshing and social anchoring.

There was a real sense of Deja vu for me when threads launched because back in April Substack the blogging platform (which might be where you are reading or listening to this!) had launched something called notes. Notes gave users an opportunity for a home feed and to interact with a wider audience. At the time of writing this, Threads have done something similar for Instagram, except it is one big eclectic and interesting feed, with what we think is a light touch algorithm.

It's a different type of engagement to Instagram for sure, my observation it’s chatty and this feels like a departure from the platform broadcasting we’ve seen over in Instagram, threads are a space to be curious but mostly a space to join in. In that first weekend there was a sense we were all this together trying to figure it out and make sense of the space.

Questions such as ‘how should we behave? should we push out content? should we be funny?  was this a political space? wasn't it nice without the bots?  And some pleas to keep it an ad free zone.

The consensus over that weekend was how do we keep this space feeling so nice? But also, can we have a curated feed?

There was one difference for me in the launch of threads versus the launch of notes and that was one about what voice or identity people might put forward. On Substack the identity is centred around the writer’s voice and storytelling, there was a sense of Substackers just leaning into that more in notes – but it would be interesting to do some psychological discourse analysis on the early notes and Threads to understand similarities and differences.

Photo by Mel Poole on Unsplash

Over on Threads people have mostly migrated from Instagram, voice and in some cases and brand identity that people have used or built for that Instagram space is being weighed up, because after all, Instagram is a very visual platform. Even though there is the functionality and digital affordances to put images into the thread space it does seem to be more about the conversation, each space or platform provides different digital affordances, or tools, so I can see why people were questioning what identity to put out there.

I’m sure there are some of you listening who are thinking ‘I’m the same in all spaces’, and perhaps that’s mostly true. Online tools give us different ways to digitally express ourselves but the company we keep and the audiences that we image seeing our content or profile have a profound effect on the way we behave.

Social identity theory (SIT) is the heartbeat of online behaviour and way before the Internet was a thing psychologists Tajfel and Turner developed this theory to explain how we express ourselves in relation to the groups we are members of.

Offline this looks like the school or university you attended or the work you do the neighbourhood you live in or your political leanings, but online out interests are served up in really nuanced ways Substack does  in in terms of letting you know what other people read, but on threads the only thing we really have to go on was the short bio that people are writing and the way they respond to others. There is no central topic or hashtag search. So, the incredibly fascinating thing about Threads for me, is observing how this unfolds.

SIT theory says that the way we think about who is our ‘in group’ and who is the ‘out group’ adds to the way we think about ourselves. But when everyone is in the same space and there’s few filters, how do you determine navigate around people like you?

This is where the power of words and language comes into its own, when I spoke to people about online spaces and was researching how women found or avoided in some cases other entrepreneurs. They used language as a digital GPS, emoji and phrases acted as visual semiotics to guide them to like-minded people, this is totally normal, we find safety in hanging out with people who are more like us, than not.

But shifting from finding people, to finding our own voice, arriving at the identity we want to put out there isn’t always straightforward. Psychologically speaking we call this self-presentation, online spaces give us a digital affordance that allows us to edit the way we present ourselves in different ways. We can put our best self forward, sell a particular identity for a particular audience if we want to. Sometimes this is unconscious, reactive or intentionally restrictive behaviour.

My research around Impostor Phenomenon shows that some people think very deeply about every post and conversation that they put out into the internet and, technology has enabled that behaviour, it helps us to get the perfect image with a perfect narrative and quote and we can post it we can delete it we can edit it. Threads has fewer digital affordances for now, but one thing it has in common with every other platform is what we call context collapse, and this is where people from different backgrounds different vocations different interests are thrown together and there is a meshing and flattening of audiences. It's fascinating, and it drives some interesting behaviours specially in terms of the way in which we protect, present or promote ourselves and our online identity. What we do know about context collapses it can lead to imagining audiences, which can hold us back or propel us into hitting that send button. Yet threads appears to be enabling a less edited and filtered approach for some users in that first weekend, and it has fewer digital affordances.

One possible explanation is that there’s less pressure to put out a polished post, that Threads is attracting voice or opinion over visuals.

We could also argue that perhaps those early adopters were more likely to put themselves out there.  Without some scientific research we just don’t know.  But what we do know that online identities for most people are an extension of real-life.

And just like in real life, in those first few days, people were a little bit unsure. It felt like the space was dominated by individuals and smaller brands. Behaviour was politer but there was also a hint of something we call anchoring, it’s a kind of social projection where we are more likely to share our views with a group and assume (as form of bias) that they are shared. So, this gets super interesting in the context of an online space with fewer features limiting whose posts we see, and who see ours, those projections are likely to be shooting outside the usual group boundaries, there was evidence of descriptive norms being posted such as ‘let's keep this space influencer free, or don't sell to me I’m here for the community feeling or block the big brands’. I mean, clearly in a space that has one feed there are going be people in all those groups seeing those projections. It’s when those descriptions are paired with the ability to see what posts have attracted attention through likes, positive comments, and resharing that leads to our understanding of what is appropriate behaviour. Both of those things, the description and the action we take with the description are usually changed by algorithms on platforms. On Threads, we were led to believe this is a light touch.

There is also one other characteristic of social platforms that helps us navigate our way around context collapse, and this is symbolic and social boundaries. Twitter blue is a great example of a symbolic boundary, these visual clues help people to monopolise resources or followers, verification and size of following are two ways in which social proof is achieved online. It feels more ambiguous on Threads, although for now it is easier to see who has engaged followers by the length of conversations and numbers of followers.

One challenge with Threads is trying to make meaning of our voice in a space where we don’t have the same shared goals as our potential audience, without tools to find subjects /interest areas or trending information that’s even harder. Psychologically speaking, I think what we can learn from observing these newer social spaces is just how behaviour is changed and influenced by the degree of ambiguity and algorithmic treatment that platforms provide.  

Leila is a psychologist, coach and management consultant. Leila’s psychology research helps us to understand how Entrepreneurs experience Imposter Phenomenon. Her paper outlines practical steps that coaches and communities supporting entrepreneurs can take to eliminate that Imposter feeling.

Thanks for reading Psychologically speaking! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.