The Social Media Marketplace

What is so powerful about currency as a communication medium?

Money is how I vote for the future (spending), and how people vote for me (income). Money lets me fire people without hesitation or conscience, based primarily on my choice and a product's utility exchange value.

Money is a powerful "choice" we have. Money gives me power to make choices that meet my wants and needs.

How might I think of social media as a "choice" marketplace? How might I find some "price-setting" mechanism that helps me filter out "good/valued" choices from "bad/valueless" choices?

In the social media market, almost all value is in information content. My utility of social media is based on the value of the information I garnish. The cost of social media is my time.

What are the similarities to drugs and sex consumption to social media consumption?

Idea: the "value" of a piece of information can be measured in terms of its reinforcement value of prior beliefs or value of changing prior beliefs.

I have a capacity for change. If my environment pushes too much change, I will push back by increasing consonant information and decreasing dissonant information.

The younger I am, the less dissonance I experience, since I have fewer lessons learned. As I get older, and I learn through my mistakes, I tend to become more adept at seeking out consonant (reinforcement) information. I also become more vested in my perception of reality, because it is what I know.

The tendency to search out conflicting perceptions decreases with age. The ability to search out conflicting perceptions increases with age.

The ability to process/adapt to change decreases with age.

What does all this have to do with social media?

What does all this have to do with a medium of exchange for social media?

Person "A" says "X". Person "B" says "Y". Which do you believe? How does one go about deciding which (if any) to believe?

Let's let one of the currencies of exchange in social media be called "trust".

How do I build trust? Accrue trust? How to build webs of trust that are transitive? Where is the leverage with trust? How is it a more efficient form of communication?