06/21/2026
Chapter 6: Why Birds of a Feather Are Mutuals on Twitter (X)
Hello fellow internet surfers. Hope this finds you well!
In this post I'd like to explore a little more as to how who you follow on social media (or are "mutuals") reveals more about you than you'd think. One truth that everyone holds in their heart: everybody has hobbies. Our identities are strongly tied to the types of hobbies or interests that we partake in, even influencing how we view ourselves. Inherently, this makes us seek out communities of like-minded individuals in order to share knowledge or sillier things GIF's. Depending how frequent or active we are in those communities also affects how we interact with other users. This process is known as membership categorization, where our expectations and how we behave with others are shaped by what category they are perceived in. So when you look at someone's feed, you are unknowingly looking taking a glance at what they think (and others think) is their place in the World Wide Web.
But social media is not just for saying "that's so me", it can also be used as a tool for learning. According to Dennen et al (2020) there are several discrete ways in which people learn and acquire knowledge in social networks. Whether is saving links for later or sharing articles/media you found interesting, it all circles back to communicating knowledge to other users in a shared platform. This can be seen across different media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.
Even now, as you are reading this entry post we are sharing information through a shared platform. So fellow internet surfer, would this change how you interact with your social media in the future?
See you next time!
Best,
Adri xx
References:
Dennen, V. P., Word, K., Adolfson, D., Arechavaleta, V., He, D., Hsu, C.-W., Hur, J., Jung, D., Kent, H., Russell, A., Toth, K., & Florida State University. (2020). USING THE NETWORKED KNOWLEDGE ACTIVITIES FRAMEWORK TO EXAMINE LEARNING ON SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES [Journal-article].
