Is superfluous content an indicator of anything in social media?

Question

Quite a vague question but I'll try narrow it down as much as I can through an example.

I started using Steemit some days ago. Quite an obscure social media site so far, not unlike a Reddit-Twitter fusion, and most of its content is quite focused on themes like cryptocurrencies - and due to its origins, it's understandable.

However, I see mundane content start popping up, too. Like, photos of food, random locations, buildings, people and stuff - the content you'd expect on Facebook.

Speaking of Facebook, there this kind of content is almost expectable to see. And it made me wonder that such "superfluous" content appearing can indicate anything?

I mean, my theory is that the amount of mundane content correlates to the size of the userbase of a social media site, but that's not always a thing.

What it means if users start posting everyday stuff they do or have on a site? Does it mean anything at all, or it's a natural stage for every social media site?

Answer 1

A community is like a natural ecosystem in many ways, it is defined by the environment and what success looks like within that environment. This leads to the emergence (or definition) of relevant fitness criteria, as well as systems to encourage or discourage certain behaviours. These may be in the form of reputation systems like Stack Exchange has developed, or may be inherent in the very design of the system itself via Web affordances that support various heuristics to simply the use of the platform.

When a community of young, it usually needs a significant investment in terms of nurturing and support, the establishment of hierarchies of users who at some point will typically adopt much or even most of the community's governance. If this is not present in Steemit, that may be one reason. It may not have a clear mandate or objective, and even if it does, it may not have appropriate mechanisms in place to help it evolve in the direction you would like it to.

In terms of mundane content you are right, most of the posts on Facebook and Twitter could probably be considered mundane content for most. These platforms do not have clearly defined goals beyond connecting people. Groups within the platform however may, and the irrelevance of content will always be contextual. If Steemit is falling prey to a deluge of seemingly irrelevant content, it may be helpful to look to the site owners and their stated goals for the community. Alternately however, if more and more people are actually using it, that may be a sign that the community of working towards achieving a critical mass. to sure of that helps at all, however may be a useful point for further discussion.