WHY IS SOCIAL MEDIA SO POPULAR?


 
Have you ever wondered why Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram etc. are so popular? I have and this has got me thinking.

Social media, by its nature, is a platform where people from all walks of life can connect with other people and share. The operative word is connect. And this leads us to the crux of it all.

REASON #1

Can I ask that you indulge me here by answering the following question? Please think about this carefully and be honest with yourself. Don’t worry, it’s a simple question.

During which activities do you feel most alive and enthusiastic?

Let me be the first to answer. I feel most alive when I am doing something I truly enjoy with people I like or love the most.

The crucial part is the latter part of the last sentence. You see, we are talking about connections. And that is the point. It’s got very little to do with the activities per se. It’s about connecting with other people.

I suspect the activities which excite you involve other people, right?

But why is this a big deal?

It is a big deal because we are linked on some or other level. This explains why we can never live completely alone and separated from other people. If you would try to completely extricate yourself from other people, you’d lose your mind. So, don’t even think about it. Bad idea!

Now, social media being the platform where connecting with other people is effortless, it becomes clear why it is so popular. I’m sure you can see where this is heading.

Social media satisfies one of our most primal itches which is association with other people. We simply have to connect and social media delivers a solution with relative ease. You pick up a phone, tablet, laptop and you are no longer alone even if there is no one physically with you.

That is why social media is so popular.

REASON #2

Social media affords us relative popularity even though we are not so popular in person. Let me elaborate.

When you encounter someone on Facebook with over 1000 friends, do you honestly think he/she is that popular? 1000 friends popular?

Now imagine what it would take to have that many friends in the real world. You have to be something really special. You’d have to be an amazing individual with unreal magnetism. Should I go on?

The point is that it is difficult, or should I say, impractical to have a thousand friends.

But with social media, this is child’s play. It is just a matter of pressing buttons and there you are. Doing this is easy, indeed even a child could do it. In fact, children are doing it.

Besides, who doesn’t want to be popular?

With social media, popularity is gained without the usual pitfalls and difficulties of doing it in person.

CONCLUSION

Social media has afforded us an opportunity to connect and easily gain popularity. So, social media has done a lot of good but there is also a dark side to it. Unfortunately, this cannot be discussed right now but I promise it will be unpacked in the not so distant future.

 

 

 

Comments

  1. Paul9 December 2016 at 06:35

    That is true. One could question the depth of the friendships and popularity, but in many ways the mind does not always differentiate between illusion and reality. This why visualization can be so effective. In this case of social media, the mind has enough visual indicators of friendship and popularity to feel good!

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