It's an utterly human phenomena; you learn of something, and then immediately feel a strong desire to share that information with someone you are close to; or in some cases, with others you're not that close to; just someone. It's one of those feelings most everyone has experienced, even as very little is known as to the reasons why. Why do most of us run to someone close to us when hearing news, either good or bad? Why do we post such information on our Facebook page, or send out notes on Twitter?
The Clinical Approach
Jonah Berger thinks he knows; he's been studying the whole subject for years and very recently has published a paper in the journal Association for Psychological Science documenting the results of a series of tests that he believes, explains to some extent, what's going on when we feel the need to share.
First of all, he says in his paper, sharing of information seems to occur as the result of physiological arousal, not sexual, per se, but aroused as in sensations are swirling around in our mind. It's such arousal that stirs us to want to share because arousal causes our autonomous nervous systems to react, which are the parts of our brain responsible for social interaction.
To prove this, Berger subjected half of a group of volunteers to an activity known to cause arousal, in this case, jogging in place. The other group simply sat around. Afterwards, all the volunteers were asked to read a non-stimulating article, and then were immediately asked if they'd like to share the information they'd just read with someone else. The group that had been jogging in place were more likely to say yes.
In another study, half of a group of volunteers were subjected to anxiety producing videos, while the
other half got a dull film. Afterwards, both groups were asked if they felt like sharing what they had just observed; again, the agitated group answered yes far more often.
The Personal Perspective
Joshua Gowin, a doctoral student, in behavioral neuroscience at the University of Texas Health Science Center in Houston, has other ideas. In a recent column in Psychology Today, he writes that sharing is at the root of friendship; it's what causes bonds to form between people and then, as time passes, it's the shared knowledge that keeps them close. He cites examples of lifelong friends who feel that the sharing of information was the glue that held their friendship together for so long; after all, he notes, it takes more than just the things in the now to keep bonds strong between people that like each other.
Regardless of whether we share as a means of pouring out the emotions we feel due to heighted arousal, or because it's how we bond, sharing is clearly an important thing to a lot of people; consider the enormous number of people using Facebook every day, or Twitter, or those who run home to the people they love when they have some news to share. That's what's important after all, having someone to share stuff with when the time comes.
Sources
- "Why do we share stories, news, and information with others?" Medical Express.com. Viewed June, 29, 2011
- "Why Sharing Stories Brings People Together" Psychology Today, Viewed June, 29, 2011
Bob Yirka - Bob Yirka has written thousands of online articles and backs them up with a BS in Computer Science/MS in Information Systems Management.
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