A study on the use of social media as a tool in conspicuous consumption

Overconsumption is one of the main causes of ecosystem degradation. Social media, which allows people to instantly communicate with each other with technological developments, is an important factor that encourages people to consume excessively. Social media is an important medium that has become indispensable in the lives of individuals by enabling individuals, such as models, football players, singers, to scrutinize the enviable luxury lives of famous people and to exhibit their own daily lives. Individuals who follow the daily lives of people who are admired for their luxurious living standards and social class through social media try to compare their consumption patterns with the consumption patterns of individuals whose social class they envy. Individuals create a new identity for themselves in order to meet various psychological needs such as gaining respect, appreciation and admiration by the people around them by showing themselves in a higher social class through their conspicuous consumption styles on social media. Individuals who want to ensure the continuity of this identity they have created on social media tend to consume more. The aim of this study; to examine the use of social media as a tool in conspicuous consumption. The sample of the study consists of 287 students studying at Kırşehir Ahi Evran University. In the study, a questionnaire form consisting of three parts was created as a data collection tool. As the data analysis method of the research; One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Independent Between Groups t-Test, descriptive statistics and frequencies were used. According to the findings obtained from the research; It has been determined that there is no significant difference between age and conspicuous consumption in social media. In addition, it was determined that there was no significant difference between gender and the tendency of conspicuous consumption in social media, while there was a significant difference between credit card use and conspicuous consumption in social media, and credit card users were more likely to consume conspicuousness in social media than those who did not use credit cards. Keywords: Conspicuous Consumption, Consumer Behaviors, Social Media, Overconsumption.