Why we so like our "like" button?

In my opinion, social network is more about people than about technology. By using it we can build or community without geographic restrictions. We can be in touch with people who far from us.

I think there are two very important aspects in phenomenon of social networks.

First of all is “Global Village” appearance.

Global Village - a term coined by Marshall McLuhan to describe the current new communications, and subsequently cultural situation. McLuhan describes how the earth "shrunk" to the size of the village as a result of electronic communications, made possible the instantaneous transmission of information from any continent worldwide.

From here: http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Students/bas9401.html

"Today, the term "global village" is mainly used as a metaphor to describe the Internet and World Wide Web. On the Internet, the physical distance between the interlocutors is not essential for communication, not only cleared the space and time, but a convergence of cultures, attitudes, traditions and values.

Due to the improved speed of the online exchange of information, people will have the opportunity to read, share and respond to the situation in the world with much greater speed. McLuhan believed that this process of forcing people to be involved in each other's affairs, as if it were our own. Engaging in communication with each other by means of electronic communication, people think and act in such a way as if they were very close, would live in "a village." They consciously or unconsciously all thoroughly invade each other's lives, talking about everything he saw and heard. It is a form of communication creates a new sociological structure within the existing context of culture."

So we can see how news spreads in whole work from one person to another like news in small country village from one neighbor to another. And we trust to this news more than official newspaper and so on. Because communicate with people is more important for us then broadcasting. People like only people. For example – advertising with people images much more profitable than without.

But why social network is so popular? I think the answer is in the human nature. And this is a second phenomenon.

The fact is social communication is the most important aspect of human nature. Functioning of the group was the basis of the survival of the human. And in order to success function of the group we have to build social network in our brain. What is social network for our brain? It’s s quite simple structures, which we keep in our neocortex: profile of other person and our relation to him. Looks like Facebook J right? Plus we are trying to achieve a higher level of hierarchic of our group. Looks like “like” in Facebook J

What is neocortex? The neocortex is a part of the brain of mammals. It is the outer layer of the cerebral hemispheres, and made up of six layers, labelled I to VI (with VI being the innermost and I being the outermost). The neocortex is part of the cerebral cortex (along with the archicortex and paleocortex, which are cortical parts of the limbic system). In humans, it is involved in higher functions such as sensory perception, generation of motor commands, spatial reasoning, conscious thought and language.

The neocortex is the newest part of the cerebral cortex to evolve (hence the prefix "neo") and in humans, 90% of the cerebral cortex is neocortex!!!

90% - it's important.

Namely the development of the neocortex makes us different from animals, because the rest of the brain is very similar to the brain such as the primacy, but the only difference is that human’s neocortex is much much more. Moreover, this is the only part of the brain that evolved in humans in evolution. There is a definition of neocortex ratio. The neocortex ratio of a species is the ratio of the size of the neocortex to the rest of the brain. A high neocortex ratio is thought to correlate with a number of social variables such as group size and the complexity of social behaviours!

And now let’s recall about our 90%!

Almost all of our brain works only for social interactive!

And it’s why Facebook and other social’s network so important for us – they expand our bran.

And it’s a very important fact in human nature. We now can expend our brain function by technical solution J we can expand our social group, now we are not limited by physical location for communication. And we can support more social network than our physical brain (only about 150 person (yes really)).