{"id":35631,"date":"2022-07-05T09:22:43","date_gmt":"2022-07-05T09:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/?p=35631"},"modified":"2022-09-18T13:22:08","modified_gmt":"2022-09-18T13:22:08","slug":"when-social-media-influencing-becomes-problematic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/2022\/07\/05\/when-social-media-influencing-becomes-problematic\/","title":{"rendered":"When Social Media Influencing Becomes Problematic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-35633\" src=\"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/When-Social-Media-Influencing-Becomes-Problematic-GPI-Blog.jpg\" alt=\"When Social Media Influencing Becomes Problematic - GPI Blog\" width=\"650\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/When-Social-Media-Influencing-Becomes-Problematic-GPI-Blog.jpg 650w, https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/When-Social-Media-Influencing-Becomes-Problematic-GPI-Blog-300x169.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 650px) 100vw, 650px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Article originally published on<br \/>\n<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/the-dark-side-of-social-media-influencing-181553\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/theconversation.com\/the-dark-side-of-social-media-influencing-181553<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>More than half of the world\u2019s population is on social media daily. With 4.48 billion active users worldwide, social media has become the norm. Terms like followers and influencers that used to be associated with religious groups, are now the norm amongst social media users. No wonder, many \u201cdevoted\u201d users feel disconnected or lost when they go offline. This is when social media\u2019s influence becomes problematic.<\/p>\n<p>There are fundamental reasons why social media could become an issue. This platform is designed to dazzle users and keep them engaged in exchange for their time and participation. This industry is projected to earn US$13.8 billion in the form of ads and in-stream purchases. Livestreams, reels, and polls are key features where users spend most of their time while influencers are motivated to create content that will make followers feel a sense of belonging and connected. Alas, there are plenty of content and so little time!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><em>Parasocial Relationship vs. Sense of Belonging<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>When followers become \u201cattached and obsessed with influencers\u201d followers often elicit behavioral shifts that could be harmful to themselves, the people around them, and sometimes even to influencers. Such attachments can be categorized as\u00a0<em>\u201cparasocial relationship\u201d<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0<em>\u201csense of belonging.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0According to research, \u201cparasocial relationship is followers\u2019 perception of their one-sided relationship with an influencer, and sense of belonging is the feeling of being an integral member of the influencer\u2019s community.\u201d Problematic social media engagement is often a result of developing both attachments.<\/p>\n<p>Therefore, followers must consciously manage their level of participation. Setting daily time limits, turning off notifications or simply \u201cdisconnect\u201d are some ways to prevent deep attachments. Influencers may also help prevent unhealthy engagements by openly talking about the issue and reminding the users of their well-being beyond screen time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Article originally published on https:\/\/theconversation.com\/the-dark-side-of-social-media-influencing-181553 &nbsp; More than half of the world\u2019s population is on social media daily. With 4.48 billion active users worldwide, social media has become the norm. Terms like followers and influencers that used to be associated with religious groups, are now the norm amongst social media users. No wonder, many \u201cdevoted\u201d [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":35633,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1811],"tags":[1065],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35631"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35631"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35639,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35631\/revisions\/35639"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.globalizationpartners.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}