What is conformity and how does it make us behave?

Conformity. Something very interesting I've learned recently.

In case if none of you here don't know what the term means, it basically means you're doing the same as everybody else, even regardless if it's something wrong... But with that said, it's always good to simply stand out as your own individual! 

I'm just about to further explain on that...

Example 1:

A good example of conformity, would be when you are officially a member of any uniformed public service and you must therefore, dress and behave the same as everybody else.

But why? It's because it shows respect towards your colleagues, the public and yourself, by physically demonstrating you want to be part of a hard working team.

This kind of behaviour, will eventually transform yourself into a confidently disciplined person, who feels proud to be a part of a team, by thinking that you want to be setting a prime example to those looking up to you. E.g. The public. 

Example 2:

A not so good example of conformity, would be when you go to see your favourite football team play.

Whilst you are either sitting down or standing up, trying to enjoy the game like most people, you then hear a small group of people (at first) shouting rude chants. Some can actually turn racist... Eventually you start to hear more and more people get involved with the rude chanting, even though, it seemed like they never wanted to intend on getting involved in the first place.

You sit there thinking to yourself if it's the right thing to do, by joining in with these people, but then again, you hate the idea of being disrespectful to the right-choiced people around you, let alone turning into a racist. This is where your 'Individual Liberty' and 'Human Rights' come into play.

Final conclusion: You must be able to identify the good and bad examples of conformity, as they both have different consequences.

Thank you for reading through and as always, I much appreciate your thoughts on the feedback. Have a great evening all, whatever you're doing.😉

 

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!😊

Are you with or against 'society'?

This is something fascinating which I've been thinking about lately, as this is proven to be a rather popular topic of discussion to gossip about nowadays; Being that this is the 21st century!

To put these questions in simpler terms:

Do you like to blend in or stand out?

Do you care about what people think of you or are you not bothered?

Do you enjoy being popular or unnoticed?

In relations to all of the above questions, just simply enjoy being who YOU are, regardless if you like to follow society or not.

Scenario 1:

You are a keen sports person, and you follow one of these 'social media influencers' who looks ultra fit, with their six pack, pressed out chest, pressed out pecks, ripped limb muscles and their muscular body. You suddenly decide, you want to look and be EXACTLY like them. So, you therefore start finding ways to build up your muscles, as well as working on your intended six pack. Eventually, you then have this strong thought in your head saying: "I really think people will be impressed with my new and improved body. I can't wait to see their reactions!"

This is that very same voice telling you to push yourself, to encourage you to become a member of 'society'. 

But in reality, you only have an intention of modelling yourself into that influenced person, due to your inside voices telling you to change yourself, just so you can impress your community, as well as your friends and family. FACT: If you watch Love Island, you would see people behave like this ALL THE TIME. In which, lead to 3 unfortunate deaths of those involved with the programme... (Names will be kept anonymous)

Truth to be told, only improve your body if it is to benefit your health.

(The attached picture, shows you an example of what society wants people to look like, just to impress their audience)

 

Scenario 2:

You are a lover of branded clothes, you have a lot of branded clothes, but at the same time, you feel like you don't have enough branded clothes. So you therefore decide to get more branded clothes there and now.

After you feel satisfied with your amount of branded clothes, you now have a happy feeling that you will be able to impress your community, by having so many branded clothes.

However, bare in mind that almost ALL of these branded clothes cost A LOT of money. This will make people think: "This person must be rich if they can afford all of these branded clothes." Which is partly true, as there is a limited budget on how much you can spend on ANY clothing, not just branded clothing.

My final point is, there is absolutely no shame at all by wearing non-branded clothing, as it shows that you have no interest with joining society, including what other people think of you.

(The attached picture, shows you an example of what society wants people to look like, just to impress their audience)

All of this pretty much sums up my discussion about this chosen topic.

Thanks for taking your time to read. I'll be interested to know whatever your thoughts are on society. Please stay tuned for more content!