Somehow this quote reminds me of my reaction to the phenomenon of all those questions posts on Facebook these days. I could not figure out what they were about, so I did a little digging. I just knew that a Face Book page of some wholesome mid-western housewife with a nice friendly smile was not all that interested in my favorite Thanksgiving side dish without an ulterior motive. The one you always hear is they are digging for password clues, but that is only a sliver of the real reason behind these posts. It is mainly about gathering lists and information about people to sell for whatever purposes the buyer wants to use them for. Back in pre-internet times it would be similar to purchasing mailing lists of potential customers that fit the demographic of your product. In addition, there are all kinds of other angles to the information they gather, no matter how innocent your answer. There is actually no 100% safe answer to these posts.

The psychology of getting people to respond is quite basic and obviously very effective. They basically use a three-prong attack:

Virtue Signaling: Social media business people discovered a long time ago that folks love to prove to everybody how virtuous and good they are. An example of this would be the 'Would you let someone ahead of you in line at the grocery store if they only had a few items.' There are many variations of this theme. Of course you are a good person and want to make sure everybody is aware of it. The beauty of social media is you can be virtuous in your underwear at home and actually never have to do any real-time good.

Intelligence: The classic is the 'If you can answer this question you are a genius.', though there are many variations of the 'See me! I'm so smart!' post. Everybody wants to feel smart. The irony is the majority of folks that answer these posts aren't very smart. If you want a some sobering reading, check out the commentary on these kind of posts. It will give you chills when you realize these are the same people who vote. That is part of the equation though. The promoters of these posts are hunting down a demographic of the population that is more malleable to being influenced by targeted advertising or falling for scams or bogus charities. The truly intelligent won't be answering these kind of posts.

Connection: In a world where virtual reality and friendships are challenging real life connections, these posts scratch that existential itch to matter about something, to have a voice on a topic, to be heard. That may be their biggest draw at the end of the day.

I was answering some of these posts with sarcasm and humor. I was getting tired of seeing them on my wall. It is taking over Face Book. Then I realized even that wasn't a good idea. The scam artists that post these could care less. They just want traffic. Every time you comment on one of those posts you are spreading it to all your FB Friends. It is truly just a form of computer virus that we enthusiastically spread by ourselves

If you are really smart and virtuous you will stop answering these posts. They are cluttering up and ruining Face Book. I am now blocking them as they come up on my wall. That is the moral thing to do.... 

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