Social Media Communication

5 Social Media and Behavior

LEARNING GOALS

This chapter will help you understand:

• How do social media change news consumption?
• How do social media alter health behavior?
• What is the culture of sharing?
• How does knowledge collaboration occur in online communities?

KEY CONCEPTS

Knowledge collaboration

Metamedium

Culture of sharing

Online community

THEORY HIGHLIGHT

Social Cognitive Theory

Overview

At almost any tourist spot, some tourists can be seen using smartphones to take photos, which are set, occasionally, on a selfie stick. Then they share the photos instantly through social media, like Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, or WeChat. Grumbling may be heard if social media does not work well due to a poor cell phone signal. Social media obviously help change their sightseeing behaviors from taking photos to sharing them with families and friends. Part of their sightseeing is sharing “interesting moments” on social media anywhere anytime, adding fresh evidence to the social media impact on human behavior.

On the Web, using social media has become the most popular attraction, overtaking pornography as the No. 1 online activity (Goldsmith, 2008). As social media continue to grow as one of our habits, it is no surprise that using them changes our behavior through affecting cognition and perception. Ample evidence has been found to confirm the impact of social media use on behavior change, ranging from news consumption to health behavior.

By altering behavior, the social media ...