Social media is all about user generated content (UGC). We often forget that social media companies are multibillion-dollar industries that are ultimately dependent on the content we – every day people -create. Their cyberinfrastructure is not enough by itself to hold inherent value for a social media platform. Rather, the value is maintained and grown via larger and larger amounts of user generated content. Indeed, what is often overlooked is that it is not just the increased volume of content, but it is also that we are increasingly tagging and associating this content, which makes for a certain level of stickiness (Jenkins et al.) within social media platforms. Social media platforms themselves are built to elicit content. For example, emails from Facebook saying so-and-so like this or posted this seduce/tantalize us to produce and consume content on Facebook. But, from the vantage point of social media companies and potentially us, sharing should be seamless – indeed it should almost feel ‘natural’. The notion of frictionless sharing is based on a difficult ontology that places primacy on the ‘shared self” rather than a private self. The shared self sees a social value in sharing. Some see the social function of sharing as akin to forms of social grooming when we share with others, but we also want social feedback in return. However, a perceived issue with social media is that not all of your photos, post, etc. will receive a response so the perception is that the more content one produces and shares, the more one is likely to get a social response (e.g. a like, comment, etc.).

So I ask you readers:

• What exactly can we ‘frictionlessly’ share? [Feel free to provide examples and links]
• How do these affect notions of the public and private?
• Do these technologies make us more pro-social or do they inhibit sharing?