Click it, like it, Follow it, That’s Homophily!
So, I Got This Feeling
The sense one is fitting in, the ability to be open and honest, and private investments are all influences that keep us feeling connected to social media. There are psychological justifications of social media as well, they are listed below.
Social validation
Social validation is one factor that helps contribute to this feeling of connectedness. If a person lacks confidence or needs validation for themselves, chances are they depend more on social media for that validation (Pittman& Reich, 2016). Relying on social media for social validation can also backfire, if the followers one looks to start saying negative things instead of possitive their confidence level can plumet. If one seeks valadation on social media it is suggested that they only friend and follow people they know and are good friends with.
Amount of Attention on Social Media
The amount of “likes”,followers, or any positive attention a person gets contributes to this feeling of connectedness too. That minute of attention increases confidence, self-worth, and popularity. Just like validation the attention can flip from possitive to negative. Imagine someone posts an unflattering picture of you on social media and all of your friends as well as their friends are likeing and commenting on it. There is bound to be a mix of positive and negative comments but those negative comments are going to stick out to you and make you view yourself negatively. In this instance attention on social media may not be what one wants.
The Social Media Addiction
Social media can be addictive to some. These people tend to visit social media many times in the same hour, they have this notion that if they don’t check their feeds they will miss something. In fact, a study from Swansea University found that people experienced the psychological symptoms of withdrawal when they stopped using social media (A.G.Walton, 2017). The difficulty with this instant technology is that it has become so completely integrated into our lives. We use social media as a primary source of information, it is often considered to be easier to communicate through social media sites than it is to communicate face-to-face or on the telephone.
What is Homophily?
According to McPherson, Smith-Lovin & Cook (2015), homophily is located in almost every media network. In terms of social media, homophily means that users with similar likes and interests are more likely to follow each other or become Facebook friends, this often impacts what they post about. A benefit of homophily in social media is the contributions from one person to another and the ability to exist upon similar people like yourself, having like values, ideas, aspects, actions, and attitudes. Another benefit is the information accessed. Homophily restricts a person’s social frames within having a strong implication on facts that are retrieved, form perspective, and they’re experience.
Platform Algorithms and the Development of Homophily.
In today’s world, social media algorithms are what many social media platforms run on (Agrawal, 2016). When discussing the many platforms of algorithms for the development of homophily, two social media platforms stick out. Those two are Facebook, and Instagram. These platforms create interaction, engagement, and performance which are all major contributions that help to influence algorithms. Facebook, and Instagram for example have algorithms that records your searches, so lets say it’s a hot summers day and you research waterparks to take the kids to in the few days following your search the adds you see on Facebook are going to be for waterparks in the area. Coincidence I think not, that that algorithm of theirs at work.
Thanks for reading,
Caroline
References
Agrawal, A. J. (2016). What do social media algorithms mean for you? Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajagrawal/2016/04/20/what-do-social-media-algorithms-mean-for-you/
Altmann, G. (2016). Free image on pixabay — feedback, confirming, businessmen Retrieved from /en/feedback-confirming-businessmen-2990424/
McPherson, M., Smith-Lovin, L., & Cook, J. M. (2015). Birds of a feather: Homophily in social networks. Annual Review of Sociology, 27(1), 415–444. 10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415 Retrieved from https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev.soc.27.1.415
Pittman, M., & Reich, B. (2016). Social media and loneliness: Why an instagram picture may be worth more than a thousand twitter words.Computers in Human Behavior, 62, 155–167. 10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.084 Retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563216302552
