John Y’s Musings in the Middle: Facebook Secret

A Facebook secret.

Facebook is a place where millions of people seemingly give advice to millions of other people daily but are really just using others as an excuse to give—and hopefully take—their own advice.

And I think that’s a very good thing.

The advice is communicated in status updates containing inspirational quotes, wise advice, clever slogans, and touching stories. Which seems lately to be on the rise.

We are telling ourselves that we need to adopt that particular thought or this mindset or take that action. It’s always easier to take advice ourselves if we can do so under the guise of giving that advice to others. It’s easier to hear, to accept, and ultimately to take. And FB gives us that always ready third-party, i.e. the FB world.

So, maybe, through all the status updates where we are seemingly nudging the world to become a little bit better place is actually working. By allowing us more often to nudge ourselves to each become a little bit better person.

And so maybe that isn’t so much a Facebook secret as much as it is the secret to Facebook.