Social media is a Product of a Consumer Society : Psychological Causes and Consequences

Németh, Erzsébet (2025) Social media is a Product of a Consumer Society : Psychological Causes and Consequences. International Journal of Current Science Research and Review, 08 (12). pp. 6274-6283. ISSN 2581-8341

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Abstract

Social media platforms compete as marketers for our time, attention and data – in effect, we pay for it. But at a high price. This paper seeks to answer the question of how social media use (exploit) psychological phenomena to achieve their business goals and what the psychological consequences of this are, in the light of international research. The aim of the paper is to help understand why and how the excessive use of social media, while supporting self-protection mechanisms, causes addiction, anxiety and self-image disturbance. What is the reason for the aggressive tendencies that accompany social media use and how the superficial and rapid intake of information reshapes cognitive processing, attention, memory and decision-making processes. The paper also reviews the communication phenomena and socio-psychological effects that accompany excessive use of social media, such as peer comparison, changes in patterns of social behaviour, cyberbullying, echo chamber and opinion bubble phenomena, lack of empathy and the culture of erasure, and the impact of all these on users’ mental and physical health.

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