Here’s an idea; watching “live” TV at home is now the largest social experience that we ever take part in.

If you think of the biggest crowd that you’ve ever been in most of you will probably think back to either watching a football match at a stadium or being at a large club or shopping centre but now thanks to social media sitting a home on your sofa watching a show such as Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead or even Britain’s Got Talent with your smart phone in hand or laptop in front of you now puts you in the largest gathering of like-minded people you’ll ever be in.

We might need a bigger sofa

Social media has created a phenomenon I like to think of as the metaphorical long sofa – although you may think that watching TV is quite an insular activity with at most three or four people sitting in relative silence glued to a flickering screen you can now share your living room with upwards of one million people with a simple hashtag or “@” symbol that you are able to search out the show that you are watching and find those who are watching it “alongside” you.

As people now watch the box they are constantly sharing and updating their reactions to the narrative before them, either good or bad critiques, dismay at a characters decision or even simply a reaction on the screen. Viewers can now build up a community around a show with people from all around the country from one event that they are having the same experience as. They are able to chat, agree, disagree, debate or even troll one another just as if they were sitting alongside them in the room, so long as their responses are less than 140 characters.

Tweeting pictures of your bare feet is one way to get a "certain" type of follower.

Although you could say that it is similar behaviour as fans of box sets that tweet along as you watch that you can find later there is an immediacy to the conversations that you have with people when watching a “live” event as you are experiencing these things alongside them. In that sense I would still argue that the box set is still a lonesome viewing experience as it’s a little like you’re watching them with your pretend friends rather than a community. Social media reaction to a marathon of Mad Men or 24 might have allowed the viewer a large amount of time to think about that jibe or witty retort making it lose the immediacy of a reaction that would be from someone off the long sofa.

Engagement with Twitter and Facebook is actively encouraged by broadcasters as it is obviously great free publicity. One of the greatest examples of this I have seen is Comedy Central’s Workaholic’s where after a particularly bad pun or clanger of a joke there was a hastag that popped up in the bottom right corner encouraging fans to tweet about that exact instance, it allowed for immediate reaction from viewers who could then be sought out and interacted with. A particularly witty Tweep might add further to the joke or a thoughtful one speculate on the underlying meaning behind it adding to the richness of the viewing experience.

Workaholics!

Now there are even theories as to how many “social media talking points” there should be in a show in order for it to be considered a success. Senior VP of Viacom International Media networks Phillip Bourchier O’Ferrall believes that there should be between 10 and 15 of these points during a show to ensure that they are considered a rich social TV experience as reported in The Drum (http://www.thedrum.com/news/2013/04/25/tv-show-should-feature-15-social-media-talking-points-says-viacom-senior-vp)  He says that shows can now be judged on how they: “…create social media conversations.” rather than solely on traditional ratings measurements. Could it be soon that ideas of three act structures in film or 5 acts in TV will be replaced by moments woven into the narrative that will be considered Tweetable?

But what is that makes us want, nay need, to interact with others when we’re watching the TV? Psychologists talk about the term Intersubjectivity which basically means that we are social beings and to combat the terrifying philosophical idea of Solipsism (we are entirely unsure that any knowledge we hold outside our own head is actually real) we seek reinforcement of experiences by trying to deduce if others have held them to. So the outcry on social networks over the previous episode of Game of Thrones is in some way a cry for help that it wasn’t just me that thought: #OMG did that just happen on @GOT #HolyCow! Intersubjectivity emphasizes that shared cognition and consensus is essential in the shaping of our ideas and relations, basically without socializing in some way we’d all be in trouble and when you have access to the world’s largest network of people right at your fingertips you can alter you viewing experience into an experience that (without sounding too much like a multitasking The Sims player) can fulfil both your entertainment and social needs. The further beauty of it though is that no-one needs especially to interact directly with you, you are included in the conversation and that seems often to be enough to feel as one with the community.

Though it might actually even run deeper than that. Most of us on social networking sites share something of an ideal of ourselves we de-tag unflattering pictures and usually only update with information that we wish to be associated with or that will portray us in a certain way that we would like to be associated with. Interacting, on whatever level, with a TV show that we are interested in becomes an extension of our character on the social network and allows us to express ourselves to an audience of people who we will most likely want to associate with as they like similar things to us. In a sense we are “peacocking” hoping that our wit or assertions might win us followers or “friends” who we might be able to interact with further.

Anyhow, this is just me possibly over analysing what probably is just the simple act of watching TV and typing away but if anyone wants they’re welcome on my metaphorical long sofa.