Published: 2025-02-21

New studies conducted by scholars at the School of Communication have shed light on the complex and multifaceted ways that users across demographic and geographic divide are using social media platforms to meet their social, emotional, psychological, hedonistic, and informational needs.

Biophilia Gratification: Connecting with Nature Digitally

Among the various gratification users seek on social media platforms, the desire to digitally connect with nature through the creation and consumption of content about the natural environment and ecosystem is paramount. Many individuals frequently engage with nature-related social media posts, such as photographs and videos of plants, flowers, trees, water bodies, pets, wildlife, and other forms of biodiversity.

Yu-Leung Ng, Assistant Professor in the Department of Interactive Media, refers to this need for digital connection with nature as ‘biophilia gratification’. He argues that biophilia gratification obtained through social media could transform people’s understanding of the ecosystem and promote environmental protection.

Yu-leung Ng

In their paper, “Biophilia Gratification: Evidence from Nature-related Posts and Images on Social Media,” published in New Media and Society, Ng and Zhihuai Lin, a graduated MPhil student in the School of Communication, computationally analyzed three million Facebook posts and images. They examined how social media engagements – such as likes, love, care, and shares – reflect users’ innate need to connect with nature and other life forms. The authors found that social media users engaged with and reacted more to mediated nature-related posts and images than to non-mediated ones. However, they concluded that these basic social media reactions might not necessarily indicate a genuine need to connect with nature.

Social Media Filters and the Reconstruction of Self

Social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, and Douyin are popular among the young demographic cohorts termed ‘Gen Zs’ because of their storytelling culture and influencer-driven content. Additionally, these platforms are heavily favoured by young adults because they are equipped with beauty filters and photo-editing tools designed to improve facial features and enhance body structures. Social media users are increasingly relying on these built-in enhancement features to reconstruct their self-image, refine their persona, and redefine how they want their followers to perceive them.

The challenge is that the idealized body image and near-perfect physical appearances that these filters offer to their users can amplify harmful stereotypes and reinforce narrow definitions of beauty standards. Yan Wang, a 4th year PhD student in the Department of Communication Studies, examines these concerns within the context of the Chinese social media space. She argues that the Chinese social dynamics of emphasising certain beauty ideals and aesthetic expectations play a crucial role in how young adults perceive and present themselves – self-objectification.

Yan Wang

Yan Wang In her paper titled, “The Effects of Social Media Content on the Use of Beautifying Photo Applications among Chinese Young Adults” recently published in Atlantic Journal of Communication, Wang and her co-authors examined how exposure to idealized beauty standards on social media and attitudes toward ideal body images influence self-objectification among young Chinese social media users. They found that social media heavily influences self-objectification. They further observed that users who experience self-objectification prefer to employ beauty-enhancing applications and filters to achieve idealized appearances rather than employing the conventional methods of weight loss and exercises.

Financial Influencers and Content Authenticity

Social media influencing has become a crucial tool in the marketing industry, transforming the way customers engage with brands and businesses, and innovating their purchasing behaviour. One rapidly growing category of influencer marketing is financial influencing, or ‘finfluencing’ where content creators offer financial advice and investment tips to their followers, mostly young adults with limited financial knowledge. Recommendations from popular finfluencers have been known to cause market fluctuations, and change market dynamics as more people rely on them to make investment decisions.

However, given finfluencers’ persuasive power over their followers and their influence over market dynamics, there are concerns about the professionalism and authenticity of their contents and recommendations. Yan Wang’s co-authored paper, “Acting Real: A Cross-Cultural Investigation of Finfluencer Strategic Authenticity,” published in the International Journal of Advertising, delves into the authenticity strategies of financial influencers across two geopolitical scopes – China and the United States. The authors analyzed finfluencer videos from YouTube and Bilibili to conduct a cross-cultural comparison of the authenticity strategies employed by financial influencers in these two countries.

A key cultural difference in how Chinese and American finfluencers project authenticity in their content is through self-disclosure. The authors observed that American finfluencers employed more self-disclosure than their Chinese counterparts, who focused more on portfolio performance than personal experiences. Wang attributes this difference in strategic authenticity to the compensation methods of content creators on YouTube and Bilibili. While the former primarily generates revenue based on views and engagements, the latter offers a broader variety of monetization options for compensation.

These studies blend the concept of gratification to highlight how users are leveraging social media to navigate personal needs, psychological connections, and virtual relationships, across populations, cultures and platforms. The studies further provide valuable insights into the powerful impact of social media engagements and user generated content on people’s attitudes, behaviour, and decision making.

Related papers

Ng, Y.-L., & Lin, Z. (2024). Biophilia gratification: Evidence from nature-related posts and images on social media. New Media & Society. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241303776

Wang, Y., Xiao, X., Kong, H., & Lau, J. (2025). The effects of social media content on the use of beautifying photo applications among Chinese young adults. Atlantic Journal of Communication, 1-14. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/15456870.2025.2453735

Zhu, L., & Wang, Y. (2025). Acting real: a cross-cultural investigation of finfluencer strategic authenticity. International Journal of Advertising, 44(1), 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/02650487.2024.2437289