Facebook and other social networking sites are indeed taking over our lives. A new study suggests that social networks and friends are two factors that can influence health behaviour and even facilitate changes in one’s personality. Facebook and friends can influence health behaviour and stimulate changes in one’s personality, a new study has found.
Whenever one wants a message to permeate a certain social group it’s important understand the structure and influence at play. For example, if one wanted an anti-obesity drive there’s a need to target all the different subgroups in a high school because they all have a different driving factors.
“I would design different interventions for the different groups. We constantly are concerned about how ineffective our interventions are, this is a big reason why those interventions are not working. We can do a much better job promoting healthy behaviors if we understand the social network contexts and design these interventions with those cues in mind,” said one of the researchers.
The research focused on social networks and influence. The researchers have compiled a collection of methods that public health advocates use to stimulate changes in behaviour and explain why certain methods may be more effective than others in particular situations.