Social media has become an inevitable part of our lives in the age of network society. People establish multiple identities for themselves, with or without references to the real world, and behave according to those i...Social media has become an inevitable part of our lives in the age of network society. People establish multiple identities for themselves, with or without references to the real world, and behave according to those identities. Self-made components of virtual presence are not limited to identities only; many users also create hyper-personalities for themselves with the help of new technologies. Then, the fundamental question becomes： Why do people create self-made identities and hyper-personalities to portray or hide themselves in social media environments？ The answer to this question has certain connections and implications for behaviors of social media users. Therefore, researchers have investigated why some people find social media attractive and attend whenever possible, while others are afraid of social media and hesitate to attend. Positive and negative behaviors of social media users can be classified as braggadocian and preventative. Braggadocian behaviors are related to courageously taking advantage of social media, whereas preventative behaviors are concerned with avoidance of social media. The dominant behavioral pattern of a user depends on what one can achieve through attending or preventing social media. This paper first discusses basic elements of human behavior that drive social media such as altruism, hedonism, connectionism, homophily, multiple identities, memetics, narcissism, and tribalism. Then, it focuses on precautionary elements of human behavior such as avoidance, escape, blocking, fear, hiding, removal, and protectionism. Whether they are attentive or not, one thing is clear： People refrain or enrich their own lives in social media rather than being abused or watching others in industrial media.展开更多
文摘Social media has become an inevitable part of our lives in the age of network society. People establish multiple identities for themselves, with or without references to the real world, and behave according to those identities. Self-made components of virtual presence are not limited to identities only; many users also create hyper-personalities for themselves with the help of new technologies. Then, the fundamental question becomes： Why do people create self-made identities and hyper-personalities to portray or hide themselves in social media environments？ The answer to this question has certain connections and implications for behaviors of social media users. Therefore, researchers have investigated why some people find social media attractive and attend whenever possible, while others are afraid of social media and hesitate to attend. Positive and negative behaviors of social media users can be classified as braggadocian and preventative. Braggadocian behaviors are related to courageously taking advantage of social media, whereas preventative behaviors are concerned with avoidance of social media. The dominant behavioral pattern of a user depends on what one can achieve through attending or preventing social media. This paper first discusses basic elements of human behavior that drive social media such as altruism, hedonism, connectionism, homophily, multiple identities, memetics, narcissism, and tribalism. Then, it focuses on precautionary elements of human behavior such as avoidance, escape, blocking, fear, hiding, removal, and protectionism. Whether they are attentive or not, one thing is clear： People refrain or enrich their own lives in social media rather than being abused or watching others in industrial media.
