Why does social media influence people into the way they are?

Hello my fellow readers, hope you're all enjoying your weekends so far. As for me, I've been a tad busy recently, due to me starting back at college again, so I'm currently keeping myself prioritized with upcoming coursework.

However, this week, I've been writing down ideas on what my next post should be about, then I thought about making some kind of follow-up post from my previous one about social media. 

Link here: The psychology behind social media

What I've found on the internet:

Just last night, I've done some research on how can sociology can play a part in social media influencing, (I'll discuss about that in the next subheading) and one of the key factor which plays a huge role is something called: "Gaining empathy from one-another"

This is now very much commonly used by people on their socials, (namely Instagram) to attract likes and comments by their friends, as this is their own way of showing they require attention from their friends or close friends, (if necessary) in the EXACT moment that publish has been created on their social media. Here's the link to my research source: Mirroring

How can sociology be used within social media influences?:

For those of you who are not familiar with the term 'Sociology' it is another one of those scientific human behavioural studies, which mainly focuses on how humans typically behave in social situations around us. A prime example of this would be, how do we typically behave around our families and why do we behave the way we do around them. You could otherwise say, this all comes under the overall psychology umbrella. If you know what I mean.

What I'm seeing a lot on Instagram nowadays, and I'm not just aiming at friends/family either, is people never intending to post anything, yet they still have the intention of posting eventually on there, but this is to just simply gain lots of likes and comments from them, especially their close friends, as they will always be the ones who will support those individuals from day 1 - until the very end.

Let's say, you live in a family of people who have Instagram, but never actually post anything on there, unless it's a special moment in their lifetime, in which, it could be birthdays, in memory of someone or even a major celebration etc.

If your only posts were to be about the above listed things, therefore, you'll be hoping to get as many likes and comments from nearly everyone who follows you on there, meaning, they say lovely things to you, or even just use emojis as a substitute. (Depending on if you're a lover of them or not, as not everyone like the idea of using emojis in their communication)

To flip this point the other way round, if you see a friend/family member do EXACTLY the same thing as what you do on Instagram, you'll be the one who gives out all the likes and comments, in order to help them feel good about themselves in life.

If you were a celebrity, that would be a different scenario all together, as you NEED to post things on your social media, as it's YOUR job to keep the public updated about every single thing you get up to in your famous life, so you'll be able to make a living out of it. This way, other celebrities will give you lots of likes and praise, to help you to keep moving forwards with your career.

If I have to conclude all of this in my own way, it would be, that I see people now enjoy echoing on-another, so they can fit within their own form of society. Bare in mind, I'm not saying this is either a good or bad thing, as you may very well now, that I'm just curious to know how these things work and why.

Lastly and foremost, everyone has an individual right to be themselves on whatever social media. I want to put this message out there.

That's all for this topic.

Thank you very much for reading through. Please do feel free to let me know what your thoughts are in the comments or in person.

Bye for now!😊