Guilty Pleasures and Shameful Pleasures

Do many people really like facebook?

My sense is that it has a very high use-to-liking ratio. People spend more time on facebook than the other 5 most popular sites combined. many people spend more time on it than other things they profess to love. People often say that they're "addicted" to it. Of course, this is an exaggeration, but the tendency of people to say that they're addicted to something, or the tendency to spend a lot of time on something that they don't claim to like all that much, is interesting. What might be even more interesting is if Facebook use, or similar high-use/low-liking leisure activities are displacing activities that people say they really like. Imagine that you are a fan of a TV show. You've got a lot of unwatched episodes on DVR, but instead of watching them, you spend more time of facebook.

There might be many reasons for this. One is the quantity of content. Facebook, much like the internet itself, provides a seemingly unending stream of novel content, something tv shows can never keep up with. Second, you can always watch the shows later, but the news on facebook loses its freshness and its value quickly. Also, you just donkt want to be out of the loop. This brings up another argument about habitual facebook use. No one says that they're fans of talking, or fans of phones, or parties. Its just something that people do. This is why its important to think of facebook use, or any other high-use/low-liking activity on the rise, in terms of displacement. Is it substituting for other kinds of talk, like face-to-face communication, or is it substituting for things that people say that they like, that they say they want to do more of but can't find the time. This is the difference between an enjoyable pasttime and a compulsive time-suck. It also might be the difference between a guilty pleasure (something that you feel bad about because you don't want to be doing it) and a shameful pleasure (something that is frowned upon in your culture but that you really like doing).

In conducting my research on why and when people choose guilty media pleasures, I think this is a crucial distinction to make. You can be a fan of Real Housewives of New Jersey and people might refer to it as a guilty pleasure, but as long as you truly and honestly are a fan, then we're talking about something that violates societies' values, not your own values. It would be interesting if the guilty pleasure were displacing the shameful pleasure.