LJ5

After carefully interpreting this module's reading, I have realized how great of impact pictures can have on our perception, especially for social media users. Words have always been considered the primary form of communication and have contributed to one of the most popular communication channels (verbal). However, non-verbal communication forms that are tended to be expressed through images, and pictures are able to provide us with more reliable information and engage us more than just solely words. Therefore, pictures and images have always been used to convey emotions or thoughts that words failed to on social media platforms, but images and pictures posted on those sites aren't always genuine. They can be adjusted, modified, or even stolen from other sources with the current development of technology, even if an original image is authentic but if you decide to change it using photoshop tools to make it better, it would still be considered a fake image to me. As I mentioned before, images and pictures help express non-verbal communication which makes them more trustworthy and reliable than words up to a certain threshold, but people are using too many tools or filters to spoil their authenticity. 

Additionally, image sharing on social media platforms has become such a common feature, that almost every social media application will have photo sharing feature, and new photo-sharing applications are being developed and created every day. One of the possible reasons why people are paying so much attention to pictures is because it contributes to how other people view them as a person, from their looks, and appearances to their personalities and characteristics. Therefore, people just want everyone to be able to view their online selves closest to their actual selves to the fullest detail, or even some people want to project their online selves to be someone that the actual version of themselves cannot achieve. Since people are so focused on creating their best selves online, it can create unrealistic beauty standards that can eventually lead to competition and comparison or even cyberbullying, and worse conditions of body-image disorders.

With the development of technology and an increasing number of user needs, there has been an extensive amount of photo-sharing applications being created, or even old platforms but with new features added, such as Vero Social, Youpic, Pinterest, etc... Personally, I feel satisfied with the current features for image sharing on social media platforms already, but new features might surprise me in the future, people can only truly like what they have experienced.



Li, Y., & Xie, Y. (2019). Is a picture worth a thousand words? An empirical study of image content and social media engagement. Journal of Marketing Research, 57(1), 1-19. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022243719881113

Pedersen, T. (2023, February 27). Social media and body image: What's the link? Psych Central. https://psychcentral.com/health/how-the-media-affects-body-image#negative-effects

Verosa, C. (2022, November 2). 10 best social media for photographers in 2022 (Updated). ExpertPhotography. https://expertphotography.com/social-media-sites-for-photographers/

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