Diving into the motivations for participating online

There’s a piece of research that needs to happen which asks questions about what the Internet means to people.  I think a few years ago the answers would have been somewhat simplistic, depending on the sample, of course, and people would have cited things like ease of communication across large geographies, things to discover in far away places, opportunities to earn money, to save money, and because it’s just amazing.  But something has changed in recent years, in my mind, that makes it more important to people.  I can’t really pinpoint what about it is more important, but there are some dynamics evolving from the Internet that could give us some clues as to why people care.

In the Gillmor Gang’s most recent podcast, Steve was drilling Robert Scoble on why he hates listening to Adam Curry’s podcast via Sirius.  Robert tried to answer in several different ways, but Steve kept searching for an ulterior motive, one of Steve’s strengths as a reporter.  At the end of it all, it was clear that Robert just simply didn’t like it.  No motive.  No bad intentions.  He simply didn’t like it. 

But Steve’s insistence that there was an intent or motive reflects a growing curiosity about why all these things work, why people contribute, why they listen, why they care.  Why does everyone want a blog?  Why are people tagging things?  Why do people contribute to the Wikipedia? 

The opportunity for free speech is incredibly enticing to many people.  Steven Winn’s articulate review of "The Aristocrats" in the SF Chronicle ended with an insightful perspective on the value of free speech in today’s world:

"As the camera flips back and forth from Gottfried at the Friars Club podium and an audience ecstatically unhinged by his delivery, it keeps catching a stony-faced Hefner on the dais. There he is, the man who rode the First Amendment to a fortune with his Playboy philosophy and anything-goes centerfolds, profoundly unamused. It's a telling juxtaposition and a perfect coda for "The Aristocrats." Free speech isn't easy and it isn't comfortable. It may not make you smile. It can certainly make you squirm. It's dangerous and risky, and it sure doesn't give a fig about bad taste. That's what makes it matter and what makes it free."

But that doesn’t answer the ‘why’ question.  Clearly there are some tangible benefits to using online tools and services.  I don’t think I’ll ever talk to a travel agent again.  I may buy things from Circuit City for convenience sake now and again, but J&R is becoming a good friend who saves me money.  And I won’t ever again send a long handwritten letter to my friends in far away places when I can bang out a few words on a keyboard and get an immediate response.

But there’s something of deeper value to people who contribute to the evolution of the online world.  They participate in a way that is new and different, and they do it in mass.  They give their opinions readily to people they would never open up to face-to-face.  They share very personal data to broad audiences.

Is it for the sheer entertainment of it all?  Do people find it mentally stimulating or funny?  I often post something (case in point as I write this) just to wrap my head around something that intrigues me or that I feel I should understand better.  The act of writing helps me think.  I also wonder if people enjoy debating in the blogosphere or arguing over meaning in the Wikipedia and cause trouble just for the fun of being contrarian.

Is it ego-driven?  Are people positioning their concept of self in an online space in order to fuel their own perception of themselves?  I think there are a lot of bloggers who are really blogging in hopes of being famous in this new world, hoping to be written into the history books somehow.  And there are a lot of people who use it to communicate and locate otherlike-minded people in the world.

Is it a form of art?  Do people expose themselves in order to make a statement about the world in hopes that it will improve, or in hopes that others will share in their misery?  I’m a believer that the Internet has the capability to influence fundamental change in our understanding of civilization, culture, politics, economics, sciences, etc.  Are people trying to enact change in this world we live in via the Internet?  If altruism exists, how does it manifest itself online?

Is it all about money?  I had a professor at UCLA who once made the argument that every organ in the human body is there only to support the reproductive process.  Could everything we do online somehow be reduced to a root desire to earn more?

NYU Law Professor Ychai Benkler proposed that the motivations for participation could be explained in a math equation in his paper called Coates' Penguin:

"Diverse motivations animate human beings, and, more importantly, there exist ranges of human experience in which the presence of monetary rewards is inversely related to the presence of other, social-psychological rewards."

Unfortunately he spends too much time trying to quantify motivation through value exchange equations, but I think the motivations to participate online are more pure than that.  However, it’s very possible that it is all these things combined in some way. 

"Saying that people participate for all sorts of reasons is obviously true at an intuitive level. It does not, however, go very far toward providing a basis for understanding why some projects draw many people, while others fail, or how the presence or absence of money affects the dynamic."

All this begs the question of whether or not people care about the Internet more now than they did 10 years ago.  Clearly, the increase in volume of participants has some effect on everyone’s ability to succeed in these various pursuits, but I wonder if these or other pursuits are being taken more seriously now than they were before.  I don’t know how you would get to the core of what the Internet means to a person and why they really use it, but I’d love to see somebody do the kind of research that helped us see its value more clearly.

I think the discussion of what Web 2.0 means is very interesting to read, and I’m sure John Battelle and friends will go deeper and finally end the debate in October with some insightful sound bites the rest of us can use in conversation.  But that debate so far is mostly a discussion about either technology or business models only.  It’s about RSS, open API’s, blogging and open source.  And it’s about Google, flickr, Technorati and Weblogs Inc.  Again, the quotable Professor Benkler proposes it’s about economics:

"Peer production of information is emerging because both the declining price of physical capital involved in information production and the declining price of communications lower the cost of peer production and make human capital the primary economic good involved."

But it’s also fundamentally about why people are behaving in new ways, about the commitment they make to their online experience, about the motivation and intent of their actions online, about their willingness to share important parts of themselves.  I’m not starting a chicken and egg discussion here, as I recognize the enabling factors these technologies and business models have provided.  But why are people responding to these technologies and business models?  What is it about human nature that makes this new world possible? 

I’m starting to wonder if the fundamental shift we’re talking about is happening because of something a little more profound.  Might it be that the digital world is starting to look and feel more and more like the analog world?  Is the growing participatory nature of the online world showing organic experiences that make it more inviting to the nontechnical, more powerful to the world’s natural leaders, more beautiful to the artistic minds, more structurally sound to the risk averse?  Are the digital and analog worlds merging?

Can you tell that I spend a lot of time commuting?  Enough navel-gazing.

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