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The Psychology of Everything
The Psychology of Social Media
Are we really being ourselves on social media? Can we benefit from connecting with people we barely know online? Why do some people overshare on social networking sites?
The Psychology of Social Media explores how so much of our everyday lives is played out online, and how this can impact our identity, wellbeing, and relationships. It looks at how our online profiles, connections, status updates, and sharing of photographs can be a way to express ourselves and form connections, but also highlights the pitfalls of social media including privacy issues.
From FOMO to fraping, and from subtweeting to selfies, The Psychology of Social Media shows how social media has developed a whole new world of communication, and for better or worse is likely to continue to be an essential part of how we understand our selves.
The Psychology of Social Media explores how so much of our everyday lives is played out online, and how this can impact our identity, wellbeing, and relationships. It looks at how our online profiles, connections, status updates, and sharing of photographs can be a way to express ourselves and form connections, but also highlights the pitfalls of social media including privacy issues.
From FOMO to fraping, and from subtweeting to selfies, The Psychology of Social Media shows how social media has developed a whole new world of communication, and for better or worse is likely to continue to be an essential part of how we understand our selves.
106 pages, Paperback
Published April 16, 2019
20 people are currently reading
258 people want to read
About the author
Ciarán Mc Mahon
6 books5 followersDr Ciarán Mc Mahon is an Information Security Consultant and award-winning academic psychologist from Ireland. He holds a B.Sc. in Psychology and a Ph.D. in History and Theory of Psychology, both from University College Dublin. Ciarán is primarily interested in the psychology of technology, from ancient methods of writing to modern social media.
Dr Mc Mahon has authored peer-reviewed publications on the popularity of social media, the cyberpsychology of online organised crime, and the concept of digital wellness. He has been an invited speaker for many audiences, including political conventions, health service committees, information security events, police force workshops, as well academic conferences. He has also written a number of columns on topics including internet drinking games, online grieving, and trolling behaviour.
Dr Mc Mahon has authored peer-reviewed publications on the popularity of social media, the cyberpsychology of online organised crime, and the concept of digital wellness. He has been an invited speaker for many audiences, including political conventions, health service committees, information security events, police force workshops, as well academic conferences. He has also written a number of columns on topics including internet drinking games, online grieving, and trolling behaviour.
Ciarán is most passionate when explaining complex concepts. He has lectured on several undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including modules on developmental, organisational and social psychology; human-computer interaction, cognitive ergonomics, and research methods.
Dr Mc Mahon has long been enthusiastic about online media and began blogging on the psychology of Facebook in 2009. In 2011 his Candidate.ie website, reporting on political social media, was shortlisted in the Irish Blog Awards and archived by the National Library of Ireland. In addition, Ciarán was listed 100 most followed psychologists on Twitter by the British Psychological Society in 2013. He developed evidence-based anti-cyberbullying resources for the 2013 EU Safer Internet Day. He lent authority to the award-winning 2014 documentary Internet Addiction And Me, and was also included in documentary on social media ‘addiction’ on TV3 in October 2015.
Ciarán has worked at a number of third level institutions, most recently at the CyberPsychology Research Centre at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. In this role, he secured and managed the Centre’s first international funding – a European Commission project examining online child safety. In 2015, having fulfilled his ambitions there, he decided to focus more deeply on the topics which interest him most. This means firstly and foremost the psychology of social media, but more broadly, the meaning of technology.
Ciarán also has extensive media experience and regularly offers measured opinion on cyberbullying, internet politics, Facebook friendships, and the dark web to national and international media, including USA Today, Newstalk, TV3 and RTE Radio 1. Most recently Dr Mc Mahon has appeared in InfoSecurity Magazine.
Dr Mc Mahon has authored peer-reviewed publications on the popularity of social media, the cyberpsychology of online organised crime, and the concept of digital wellness. He has been an invited speaker for many audiences, including political conventions, health service committees, information security events, police force workshops, as well academic conferences. He has also written a number of columns on topics including internet drinking games, online grieving, and trolling behaviour.
Dr Mc Mahon has authored peer-reviewed publications on the popularity of social media, the cyberpsychology of online organised crime, and the concept of digital wellness. He has been an invited speaker for many audiences, including political conventions, health service committees, information security events, police force workshops, as well academic conferences. He has also written a number of columns on topics including internet drinking games, online grieving, and trolling behaviour.
Ciarán is most passionate when explaining complex concepts. He has lectured on several undergraduate and postgraduate courses, including modules on developmental, organisational and social psychology; human-computer interaction, cognitive ergonomics, and research methods.
Dr Mc Mahon has long been enthusiastic about online media and began blogging on the psychology of Facebook in 2009. In 2011 his Candidate.ie website, reporting on political social media, was shortlisted in the Irish Blog Awards and archived by the National Library of Ireland. In addition, Ciarán was listed 100 most followed psychologists on Twitter by the British Psychological Society in 2013. He developed evidence-based anti-cyberbullying resources for the 2013 EU Safer Internet Day. He lent authority to the award-winning 2014 documentary Internet Addiction And Me, and was also included in documentary on social media ‘addiction’ on TV3 in October 2015.
Ciarán has worked at a number of third level institutions, most recently at the CyberPsychology Research Centre at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. In this role, he secured and managed the Centre’s first international funding – a European Commission project examining online child safety. In 2015, having fulfilled his ambitions there, he decided to focus more deeply on the topics which interest him most. This means firstly and foremost the psychology of social media, but more broadly, the meaning of technology.
Ciarán also has extensive media experience and regularly offers measured opinion on cyberbullying, internet politics, Facebook friendships, and the dark web to national and international media, including USA Today, Newstalk, TV3 and RTE Radio 1. Most recently Dr Mc Mahon has appeared in InfoSecurity Magazine.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 22, 2021
این کتاب برای ورود به دنیای روانشناسی فضای مجازی ورود خوب و مختصری هستش. فقط موقع خوندنش زیادی به مقاله های مختلف و روش انجام آزمایش ها پرداخته بود که این احساس رو میداد که هر فصل انگار داری یه مقاله مروری راجع به موضوع فصل میخونی. دوست داشتم کمی بیشتر روی نتایج تمرکز می شد و با مثال های بیشتری تکمیل می شد اما همینم خوب بود.
July 9, 2020
مراجة كاملة لكتاب سيكولوجية الشوسيال ميديا
https://youtu.be/pgANHEyBXrs
https://youtu.be/pgANHEyBXrs
April 28, 2021
This book is terrible. As a young person who is extremely well versed in what social media is, this book was not an analysis of the relationship between people and social media and merely an explanation of how social media works. Which is entirely pointless to the "psychology" of the matter at hand. I can see the interest for older generations who are less familiar with the inner workings of social media but the title is entirely misleading. I was extremely disappointed with the book. Throughout the entire book, there were MULTIPLE typos which for a professionally published book is outrageous. The standard set for this book is lower than my undergrad papers I write regularly and those are not being published in any way, shape, or form to inform the general public. I would not recommend this to basically anyone unless you are okay with unedited literature and are only interested in what social media are.
September 18, 2020
مراجعة لمحتوى الكتاب.
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/f2V8
https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/f2V8
June 18, 2019
I haven’t been using Social Media as obsessively as I was a year or two ago because I’ve been blogging less but I’m well versed in the different social media platforms and I’ve seen how they’ve changed over the years since social media began. Oh yes, I remember BEFORE social media!
As such, this book was interesting but short. I had heard about some of it already but I did learn new things, especially with regards to how people use social media and the ways in which social media can cause problems.
A chapter each is dedicated to the following topics: profiles, connections, updates, media, messaging and values. The most eye opening part I think was learning the basics of how Facebook and other social media services use what we do on social media to affect what advertising we are shown. I knew they did this but didn’t know how much could be told about who I am as a person based on what I do or share.
This book is part of a series called The Psychology of Everything and includes books such as The Psychology of: Trust, Grief, Working Life, Addiction, Climate Change, Vampires, Retirement and Happiness. I’d personally really like to read The Psychology of Dog Ownership.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review
As such, this book was interesting but short. I had heard about some of it already but I did learn new things, especially with regards to how people use social media and the ways in which social media can cause problems.
A chapter each is dedicated to the following topics: profiles, connections, updates, media, messaging and values. The most eye opening part I think was learning the basics of how Facebook and other social media services use what we do on social media to affect what advertising we are shown. I knew they did this but didn’t know how much could be told about who I am as a person based on what I do or share.
This book is part of a series called The Psychology of Everything and includes books such as The Psychology of: Trust, Grief, Working Life, Addiction, Climate Change, Vampires, Retirement and Happiness. I’d personally really like to read The Psychology of Dog Ownership.
I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review
May 9, 2019
Ciarán McMahon provides a much-needed call for action by questioning how much we really know about the influence of social media services and platforms on society and social relations in the modern world. His writing is lyrical, approachable and easily accessible. The structure of this short study - enhanced with carefully chosen case studies - reaffirms that we do in fact know very little about the impact on humanity of commercially-driven bundles of algorithms that increasingly command more and more of our time (and attention). When reading this, I hear the author's measured tone of delivery. He builds a solid and compelling argument enhancing each section with a case study drawn from research and then summarising the findings before progressing. He argues, through psychological reflection, that this dance between users and the providers of services seeking to commodify human experience for commercial gain is one that may be captivating for both parties, but remains ignorant of the broader unexplored implications.
McMahon begins by clearly distinguishing between a social network and a social networking service. A distinction that he suggests has been deliberately made ambiguous by providers. This gulf in understanding and intention that exists between users and providers is reflected on throughout and metaphorically represented by an iceberg. The positive explicit benefits are the visible portion that we see on our screens and lurking beneath the surface are the vast multitude of ways in which our lives have been digitised and turned into valuable social data to be commodified and sold to the highest bidder. McMahon uses a psychological lens to explore seven specific aspects of the social media experience: profiles, connections, updates, media, messaging and finishes with a look at values and how this term likewise has a distinctly different meaning for providers and users of these services. These digitally mediated social networking platforms by construct are not transparent which stands in the way of the reflection demanded. As a start on this reflection, McMahon does a superb job of choosing a well-focused and short path to initiate further better-informed discussion.
The challenge is in doing and taking action based on reflection and study. Unlike Jarom Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, McMahon is merely beginning the conversation with this book. It does not provide explicit instructions but demonstrates that we must seek them out through study, reflection and subsequent social action. In this, he is clear that we, as users, have created the social media platforms that we have today and it is our responsibility to act in a socially responsible way. The book is short and easily digestible. It seeks to establish a common understanding of basic phenomenon and vocabulary to facilitate this much-needed discussion.
The role of the state at this stage is crucial, and McMahon emphasises that it is supposed to be both reflective of our social values and also ensure that legislation has the social impact that we desire. This is a call to action. We cannot expect social media platform providers to self-regulate and indeed, why would they? Do they actually have a social responsibility? I'd argue that they have a mostly fiduciary responsibility that must be policed by the state for the good of society. With a pointed indication of how easily the Chinese government is able to curb what it determines to be anti-social behaviour effectively, McMahon at least hints that there is the possibility to regulate - if not necessarily in ways that we might deem draconian.
Ultimately, one is left wanting, due to the brevity of this deliberately short work. This is clearly intentional, and this reader looks forward to broadening the discussion through subsequent contributions from the author. Creating a work that is concise and effective stems from choosing examples with unique precision and being able to narrate for impact articulately. In this, the author demonstrates mastery and delivers a product of what is clearly extensive and exhaustive reflection and translation into a hard-hitting and widely informative must-read.
McMahon begins by clearly distinguishing between a social network and a social networking service. A distinction that he suggests has been deliberately made ambiguous by providers. This gulf in understanding and intention that exists between users and providers is reflected on throughout and metaphorically represented by an iceberg. The positive explicit benefits are the visible portion that we see on our screens and lurking beneath the surface are the vast multitude of ways in which our lives have been digitised and turned into valuable social data to be commodified and sold to the highest bidder. McMahon uses a psychological lens to explore seven specific aspects of the social media experience: profiles, connections, updates, media, messaging and finishes with a look at values and how this term likewise has a distinctly different meaning for providers and users of these services. These digitally mediated social networking platforms by construct are not transparent which stands in the way of the reflection demanded. As a start on this reflection, McMahon does a superb job of choosing a well-focused and short path to initiate further better-informed discussion.
The challenge is in doing and taking action based on reflection and study. Unlike Jarom Lanier's Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, McMahon is merely beginning the conversation with this book. It does not provide explicit instructions but demonstrates that we must seek them out through study, reflection and subsequent social action. In this, he is clear that we, as users, have created the social media platforms that we have today and it is our responsibility to act in a socially responsible way. The book is short and easily digestible. It seeks to establish a common understanding of basic phenomenon and vocabulary to facilitate this much-needed discussion.
The role of the state at this stage is crucial, and McMahon emphasises that it is supposed to be both reflective of our social values and also ensure that legislation has the social impact that we desire. This is a call to action. We cannot expect social media platform providers to self-regulate and indeed, why would they? Do they actually have a social responsibility? I'd argue that they have a mostly fiduciary responsibility that must be policed by the state for the good of society. With a pointed indication of how easily the Chinese government is able to curb what it determines to be anti-social behaviour effectively, McMahon at least hints that there is the possibility to regulate - if not necessarily in ways that we might deem draconian.
Ultimately, one is left wanting, due to the brevity of this deliberately short work. This is clearly intentional, and this reader looks forward to broadening the discussion through subsequent contributions from the author. Creating a work that is concise and effective stems from choosing examples with unique precision and being able to narrate for impact articulately. In this, the author demonstrates mastery and delivers a product of what is clearly extensive and exhaustive reflection and translation into a hard-hitting and widely informative must-read.
February 7, 2021
I had high hopes for this given some of the other Psychology of... series. However the case studies were dated (considering social media is a recent phenomenon this I found quite odd) and given McMahon’s historian background I was surprised how little context was given to some of the issues discussed. Furthermore - the glaring omission is things like Cambridge Analytica which I thought would be a key item to discuss in relation to the psychology of social media.
April 9, 2021
Dissemination about social media psychology. Very useful for my PhD studies
May 23, 2022
Even though it was written relatively recently (2019) it is sometimes clear that even this is outdated. Good insights in a few areas for my research project however
March 5, 2022
good little read for those who want to be a bit more aware of how they are on social media
May 22, 2019
Ļoti brīnos, ka tikai viena atsauksme grāmatai šeit, bet šīs 100 lapaspuses manī uzjundīja tādu mīlestību pret šo tematu, ka tagad labprāt ietu un uzrakstītu vēl vienu bakalauru. Besī.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews