Social media has become interwoven in our everyday lives. As social butterflies with the need to interact with other people, we often frequent platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter e.t.c. While this might seem harmless, have you stopped to consider how social media might be affecting your financial health?
Social media plays a big role in sharpening your spending habits.
Although many social media platforms are mostly free to use, utilizing them may be expensive in both direct and indirect ways. Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have been designed to target you based on the things you are interested in and would most likely buy. The psychology behind it is that the more you as a consumer sees the things that you fancy, the easier it would be for the seller to close the deal. This eventually translates to an increase in your spending limit.
A direct perspective that demonstrates how these platforms increase our spending is through data purchases. Over 4.48 billion people use social media all over the world. These platforms are mostly accessible through data subscription and wi-fi. With the rising addiction of most people to their social media pages, it is a no-brainer that people would constantly go over their financial limit to keep up with the happenings on their favorite platforms.
Another subtle scenario that is reoccurring in over 50% of millennials, is how social media is influencing users' purchasing habits by bringing to their knowledge the things their friends are spending money on. Many individuals use social media to share the milestones of their lives. Scrolling through these postings might make you feel insecure or jealous, and you might feel driven to spend more money to make yourself feel better. This mentality can have an impact on your finances because you may become more concerned with showing public evidence of wealth than with developing financial stability in the long run.
Finding the balance between social media and your financial health
While social media has its cons with our financial wellness, it can also be used to improve your personal finances. You can follow pages such as Reaprite to get credible information about best money management practices that would help you achieve your financial goals easier.
