The psychology behind #BrewMonday

Happy beginning of the week everyone! If you follow and/or work for Samaritans or MIND, you would know for yourselves it's that time of year again.

It's the day where the iconic mythical phrase "Blue Monday" transforms into "Brew Monday". Why? This is because we believe there is no such thing as a Blue Monday which occurs on the 3rd Monday after Christmas Day. Realistically speaking, anyone could have a Blue Monday. 

The idea behind Brew Monday, is to gather people together using the fine innovative of involving a cuppa & a few other things. I can definitely see how the initiative is proving to be a big success with Samaritans, as they are passionate about connecting with people & communities by always providing a listening ear to their thoughts. In which, they are still thriving on to this day & age! 

I can see how Samaritans must have thought to themselves: "If it's popular to have a cuppa everyday in reality, then why not create an annual initiative based on the the cuppa everyday reality!" Not to mention the increase of support showed for Brew Monday, as it helps it's advertisement across social media.

All I all, Brew Monday is another one of these community get togethers, whether it's done in person, at work, or social media. Ot can be hosted in anyone's fashion. However, the inclusion of a cuppa just makes Brew Monday a lot more convincing & encouraging for more people to get involved, because, let's face it, we all enjoy having a conversation with a cuppa! We're in GB for crying out loud!

The psychology behind social media influencers

Good evening everyone, and happy Friday! I hope you've all had a good week doing whatever you've been up to.

As for me over here, I've been busy for the first 3 days with my extra credit, then I had 2 days of doing nothing. As of right now, I thought about doing another blog post, since I currently have nothing else more important to do. 

As the title states, I will be explaining the psychology of what makes people think they are social media influencers. I was actually doing my research on this whilst on my lunchbreak on Wednesday. 

What is a social media influencer?

A social media influencer is a type of person who likes to make themselves look, as well as be popular across every social media existing. They do this by constantly posting what they like doing, with the sole intention of attracting followers, and people liking their posts. 

What makes social media influencers popular in today's society? 

Social media influencers are becoming increasingly popular by the second of every day due to the amount of money they are making just by posting on their social media. This can also be done due to the fact that it's easy to become addicted to social media. On the subject of social media addiction being easy to get into, a lot of people use it to create their own businesses on it to earn money. If we even look at the term 'influencer' this is where social media influencers encourage other social media influencers to get involved in the world of social media influencing by purposely making posts that will make their followers think: "Wow! They look really cool doing that!"

Why do people behave like a social media influencer?

This is because they follow a lot of already social media users all over social media, and they feel like they want to be like them by mimicking their influential behaviour on their social media. Doing so also helps these people, who are under the influence of social media influencers, to feel like they are being social with every single person they are connected with on social media. This would be known as the now typical social interaction. *If anyone reading this is old-skool in terms of this topic, I suggest you take your allergy tablets*

Conclusion: I think we can all agree that social media influencing will STILL continue to get competitively popular in general as time will go on. Moreover on this, social media will still be an effective tool to use when it comes to promoting, marketing or campaigning, which will encourage influential behaviour to their followers. At the end of the day, there is no right or wrong use when it comes to social media influencers, as they can make post their own content on literally anything at all to attract their social media audience. I personally am not into social media influencing, so I do not want to showcase my opinions on here, as it could cause controversy. Link to my research source: https://www.bcu.ac.uk/media/news/blog/are-social-media-influencers-really-that-significant

Anyway, hope you've all found this topic post beneficial by gaining a useful insight into what social media influencers are all about, and I shall be back very soon.

*I began this post on the 20/10/23, but didn't get finished until the 21/10/23* 

An introduction to Mindset Therapy + Review

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you're all beginning the week off on a positive foot. Just because I personally have, I feel like openly sharing with you all with one of the many motivations which help me to vision life as I work through every single day.

For those of you on here who are into psychology by being already familiar with Mindset Therapy on social media, you'll know what I'll be talking about as I let light my evaluations.

I think I began following Mindset Therapy for 2 & something years now, and during that time, reading its posts has really fully opened my eyes to what I am reading. Of course, after reading each of its inspiring posts, my eyes were sending messages to my brain saying: "Wow! This is so true the more hard I think about it" This is where I begin to relate to it in real life. Well, personally my life anyway.

*These are just a handful of many various examples that I see them post on a daily basis*  

*Apologies for the disorganised pictures; this site won't let me arrange them the way I want them*

Also throughout my duration of following Mindset Therapy, I saw the realisation that all they have the intention of doing is to make people be more open-minded in life by using what they read to relate to how they vision the real life. As a fully open-minded person myself, I may not agree with every single thing I've been shown on Mindset Therapy, but that doesn't make me think less of less of it. 

In my opinion, I think what Mindset Therapy are doing on social media is really positive, as it helps encourage more people to get into psychology by looking into things with a deeper meaning. More to that, the more deeper meaning posts they create, the more it helps people into psychology gain a stronger mindset.

To any aspiring psychologist out there, I highly recommend you follow Mindset Therapy for all their inspirational content, and I guarantee you, your mindset will feel stronger after a few months just by diving deep into lots of deep & powerful thinking.

Inside the mind of a sociologist (Perspective post)

First things first, I'm so glad to have the time to be back at what I'm doing again! Realistically, this has been my first day of R&R since the 5th of June.

As I've now become hooked onto how sociology works, I thought about sharing an insight as to how a sociologist visions the world through their inquisitive eyes... (Or you could say my eyes!)

A sociologist will happen to be in a place full of people who tend to hang out in their own groups. Within those groups, the sociologist takes it upon themselves to interestingly identify how these groups tend to behave in the way that they do, in a bid to create social attraction.

This is where the sociologist does their detective work, as they figure out what makes those groups influence other people to join in with them. But the sociologist is foremost fascinated by the way these people in their groups already endure their influential behaviour, as the sociologist can easily work out that it must be to do with how they socialize in their family that makes them influential in the way that they are today.  

Of course, this will only spur the sociologist to look into these people's social medias to find the link which causes online social interaction between one another or a group of people. This is where the sociologist discovers that their way of thinking is infinite, as they figure out that there are a never-ending amount of answers in relations to investigating social behaviour/interaction. 

Sociology & social media

Long time, no see everybody! 

As I'm sure you can all figure out immediately, I've been busy keeping myself occupied with other things going on in my life at the moment. All of which, has prevented me from doing any work on here during that time being.

However, if there has to be at least 1 useful aspect from my reasonable absence period, (blog related) it would have to be that I've been curiously researching about sociology. Not just the term itself, but specifically how it can have an impact on the way people choose to behave on social media.

Just to make everyone here aware, I have been doing my research investigation in several articles & blogs which have been published by people who are qualified in the subject, so I know what I will be talking about here.

Plus, this will give me the opportunity to happily educate everybody reading this what these types of people normally do on social media which makes them behave in the way that they do and why.

Example 1:

You are friends with a group of people in your college class on Snapchat, who only like to use it to keep in contact with everybody else, as well as being able to be silly with one another. In this day and age, pretty much every young person uses Snapchat for this prime reason, as they must really like this kind of social interaction with their friends, let alone a group of college classmates being able to see what their classmates are up to.

To make a personal reference to that example, I personally have no intention of using Snapchat, but I see and overhear my classmates at college interact with one another on there almost on an everyday basis. I can empathise how they must enjoy the filter creativity on there, so it encourages their other classmates to take notice of what they enjoy doing on there which makes them conform to their filterness behaviour.

Example 2:

You are connected with some of your friends on Instagram, but all they seem to do is regularly change their profile picture and not post anything. Now, before anyone gets themselves carried away, those types of people may CHOOSE not to post anything on their Instagram, but they may choose not to post anything, as they may feel too insecure about themselves on there. These insecurities can vary from those people feeling worried about what the comments will be - simply not at all interested about wanting to impress themselves to impress others on there.

In terms of talking about conformity, you will see some friends who you are connected to on Instagram, but they all choose to not to post anything. This is the now typically type of behaviour on Instagram which influences their friends to do the same, as they think it's the best way to get in with their friends. Although, to be fair, social conformity is not just used on Instagram, it can be used in all social media platforms. Again, this is what I'm seeing as a personal insight.

 Example 3:

This is one other type of conformity which is now happening across all social media platforms. It is where oneself rarely posts any pictures, but when they do, they must always feel the need to tag people in their posts. However, this is more commonly used in their stories where it can only be visible to everyone they are connected with for 24hrs, as they do not want it to keep them visible forever. The prime reason behind this behaviour, is so the people who oneself decides to tag, wants those people to see and admire these posts, as well as for those wanting the other people who they didn't tag to admire the people who they did tag.

And you know what... I'm beginning to get hooked onto sociology! So much, that I'm thinking of doing a follow-up post in relations to this one!

If anyone reading happens to be interested in sociology, then be sure to keep an eye out for my next post!😉

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!😊

The psychology behind social media

Hello all, Happy Sunday! I hope it's been a good one for you, especially with the hot weather today.😎

Since my last post, I've been keeping myself occupied, by staying off the internet and going out walking, which is what will be bringing up today's topic of social media.

What is social media?

Social media is a multi-communication app, which allows us to connect with friends and family, by making your own posts, pictures and stories to share online with them.

Even though, it may be fun and enjoyable to use for posting about your happy moments for everyone to see, such as going out travelling, clubbing or just hanging out with your friends and family etc. It can otherwise be very well known for "Controlling your happiness" (This is a quote, which has been taken from a friend of mine's documentary that'll be displayed at the end of the discussion)

Going back to my last point, social media sometimes has the capacity to control your happiness, especially when you're feeling depressed and bored, by saying to yourself: "Do you know what, I feel like just scrolling through my social media feeds, to see what everybody else has been doing, so that it makes me feel happy" 

Doing this, only shows that you have no interest on focusing on yourself, by looking into other people's lives on social media, which will then lead your mindset to start "Comparing yourself with other people" (Another quote taken from the upcoming documentary) As you judge yourself where you stand in your life progression, against other people in theirs. This is when your mind starts saying: "I feel like I'm doing A LOT better in life then these people, as I've got many pictures, as well as posts on there, which always gets likes and comments. Whereas, this person is boring, as they can never be bothered to post anything"

Don't get me wrong, whenever people like and comment on your posts, it does feel "Rewarding" (Another quote) to you, as those people do genuinely appreciate what you are doing in the making of that post, as well as yourself for that matter, as it makes YOU appreciate what you actually physically do in life, in order for you to receive that amount of praise. I always feel the same way too when this happens on my social media.

Finally and foremost, it is NEVER a good idea to spend lots of long hours on social media everyday, as it drains all of your productive time, which you could be physically doing something towards your goal or hobby, as these are the things you're interested in to make you become into a successful person one day in your life. Plus, it drains your mental health, by constantly looking into your eye-damaging phone screen, so that it brainwashes your mind, by making it think there's nothing fun to do in the outside world anymore, and you'd rather be indoors constantly surfing the internet 24/7, as this becomes your new favourite form of entertainment.

I think I've pretty much concluded everything in that topic now.

Thank you very much for taking your time to read through this long and extensive post today, and as promised, here is my friend's awesome documentary about his outtake on social media.

The topmost reason I wanted to share it with you all in this post, is that he words every single thing about my OWN use of social media, meaning, I couldn't word it any better, as he explains everything. I'll leave you to enjoy.

Documentary: Detached

If you want to see of more of what my friend does, then click on: Nicholas Stone

Why is it important to make yourself into an example?

I said I'll hopefully be back in 2 days time from my previous post... and I was right! Anyways, I hope everyone is enjoying their week right now, as I currently am. Hence I feel like creating an exciting post today.

In this post, I shall be highlighting the several ways of "Making yourself into an example" as well as talking about why is it important.

*After reading this post, I guarantee that you'll be feeling inspired to give my advice a try!* 

  

How can you make yourself into an example?

• Be positive - This will reflect good on other people including yourself.

• Highlight your interests - This will encourage your audience to the same.

• Motivate your mood to the audience - This will help THEM to feel motivated with whatever they wish to achieve. 

• Give out a backstory - This will help people to understand you better, as well as praise you for your journey and inspire THEM to tell you theirs in order for THEM to be praised.

• Be knowledgeable - This will help your audience to remember and keep any useful advice for becoming THEIR own example figure.

Why is it important to make yourself into an example?

It is important, because you need to learn how to cope with your journey in order for you to become a successful person in life. This means that you MUST overcome the obstacles in your journey to help your mind become stronger and show no fear to anything.

Furthermore, by self tackling these obstacles throughout your success journey, you will be able to have the built-up confidence to express those feelings of courage, motivation and determination to anybody your audience.

As of such, you may wish to become an entrepreneur. (I suggest looking on Instagram would be a good place to start)

Thank you for reading through. Please feel free to let me know what your thoughts are in the comments or in person. Even if you wish to share your own example ideas with me.

I hope to post again sometime this week. Have a gooden!😉  

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!

My favourite life quotes

I thought about doing something relatively different for this kind of post; Since I personally think that everyone needs a fairly decent amount of hope from time to time. Which is why the above title explains my chosen topic.

*This is something which I very much struggle with already, and talking about it really does help*

 

*I also strongly advise everyone else to do the same, as one of my goals for this blog, is to encourage people to discuss their inner feelings more openly to a wider audience, so that they don't feel 'alone' by thinking they're the only ones who suffer from their demon thoughts*

 

(Courtesy of: https://www.facebook.com/officialknowledgeispower/)

The psychology involved with cybercrime

Hey all, 

I was intending to make a post earlier in the week, however, I had my head buried in coursework all week, so I wanted to get that out of the way. Also, I've just finished a course on The Open University called: "The psychology of cybercrime" So I reckon now would be the perfect time to disclose everything I've learned with you.

Question overall: 

Why the need for cybercrime?

Let's explore the psychological factors!

First scenario:

Say if you were a Twitter user, and you noticed that one of your friends has a 2nd account for some peculiar reason, you then immediately presume they created it, and therefore, proceed to follow them.

However, what you fail to realize, is that your friend DID NOT create that account, in which it was created by somebody who has an intention of hacking them. By doing so, they know that you're following them on twitter, which will allow them to take advantage of your account by looking into your personal details, as well as your personal photos. (Some being inappropriate)

Furthermore, they have more intention of exploiting you all over the internet by sharing your private photos (which may be inappropriate) everywhere. This will then be followed by humiliation, violation and guilt, as to why you'd trustingly followed the hacker's account thinking it was one of your friends.

Here's some useful advice: When you see another social media account with a photo of your friend and their name - Ask them first if they actually DID create another account, because you never know beforehand who is on the other side of it...

Second scenario:

You were just casually browsing the internet, when all of a sudden... a random email notification pops up on your screen.

Now, you might be thinking: "Oooh, I bet this might be exciting or urgent, so I better check it out" This email happens to be sent from a branded company informing you that you need to re-new your membership by asking for your bank details, including the use of exclamation marks. You make the decision to go ahead and send your bank details.

But after a while, you get a notification from your bank, saying that a large portion of your money had been raided from your account. You will then immediately realize you've been a victim of 'fraud'.

This type of cybercrime asks for your bank details through your email pretending to be a branded company. 3 things to bare in mind here: A. Look for the @something.com next to the branded company name, B. Branded companies would NEVER ask you to send over you bank details through an email and C. You would not see any branded company use any exclamation marks in their form of writing.

Third scenario:

Again, you were just casually browsing the internet, when all of a sudden... a random notification pops up on your screen. But this time, it's stating that your computer/laptop is at risk of slowing down, so it's advising you to click on 'save file' to help reduce the lagging in the system.

But instead, another message pops up saying a "trojan" virus has been found in the system and starts to cause problems with every single thing involved. To put it in simpler terms, you're unable to access ANYTHING.

This type of virus is designed to send scam pop messages on your computer/laptop screen, which will only end up destroying every single tab and file on it. 

Thanks for taking your time to read and PLEASE stay safe when using the internet. I shall be back soon with another post. Stay tuned!