(Credit: Shutterstock) Social media has been a boon to social science. Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other platforms serve as online laboratories that reveal all kinds of stuff about the users, researchers say. The rise of these platforms has sparked a flurry of scientific papers describing people’s social network interactions. A lot of the conclusions of the studies can engender the response, “Well, no kidding.” But offering validation for intuitive or common sense knowledge isn’t such a bad thing. A short sample of findings of papers in the last few years:
Extroverts on Facebook post a lot of minutiae about their everyday life; people with low self-esteem post a lot about their significant other.
Posting selfies can build self-esteem;
People with narcissistic tendencies post about their professional and personal achievements and put up a lot of selfies;
Instagram photos reflect posters’ moods;
Facebook privacy settings confuse users;
People who sound crazy ...
