Social Media is a Self-Serving Bias

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Snap Chat, and YouTube are all major social media channels which are dominating individuals lives. One of the many reasons individuals are on social media is to gain information for themselves that may or may not enhance their lives. The self-serving bias comes in when the individual relates to something they witnessed on social media and comments. For example, posting on a celebrity’s status on Facebook or retweeting what they said puts what the individual stated/retweeted in position to be seen by the celebrity. Once someone from the celebrity’s team has seen the post they can potentially reach out to the individual and a star can be born or dreams can be made. This is a classic example of an individual thinking about themselves and what they want the result to be. Many or most of the time the individual has no practical application nor cares what the celebrity states, they just want to be seen (Newey, 2016). On Snap Chat for example, an individual can create faces of who they want and enhance those faces with flowers or animals, this is another example of the self-serving bias because the benefit is for the individual to be what they are not and have fun with it. Do you have a self-serving bias while using social media? In the workplace?

Newey, C. (2016). Fairness as 'Appropriate Impartiality' and the Problem of the Self-Serving 

 Bias. Ethical Theory & Moral Practice, 19(3), 695-709. doi:10.1007/s10677-015-9665-6