Communities and Social Media

Influencers on Instagram Play an Important Role in Spreading Dietary Supplement Related Misinformation

Technology advancement is a major aspect of life as we know it today because it is through the diversity that technology has to offer that life is made simple in so many different ways. With technology, there is the era of the internet space which further leads to social media platforms. These are internet-enabled applications that allow people from different parts of the world to be able to connect and share virtual information regardless of distance and time. As such, it is through the use of social media that people are embracing the need for virtual communities. Out of social media came the birth of influencers as people who are in a powerful position to convince their followers on the good or bad of literally anything.
Given this understanding, this paper explores the important role that dietary supplement influencers play as far as the dilemma of spreading misinformation about dieting is concern. It argues that in as much as these influencers have absolute power in promoting an ideal image via their social media presence, they also can misinform their audience on a dietary supplement. Given the kind of power that they have as well as the obsession to have the ideal image, more and more people are accessing this misinformation, sharing it, and thus a cycle of continual misinformation on dietary supplements. To this extent, this paper seeks to address this by looking into the credibility of the information shared, the one for all approach on dietary supplements, and the power of imagery as a negative influence.