I am who I am: Sharing photos on social media by older consumers and its influence on subjective well‐being

Abstract

AbstractWe are faced with an aging population whose longer lives need to be lived well. Extant marketing scholarship has largely neglected older consumers' behavior in relation to the social media realm and its influence on well‐being. This two‐stage qualitative study investigates subjective well‐being, exploring whether and how sharing photos on social media increases the dimensions of self‐acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy, environmental mastery, purpose in life, and personal growth. The findings indicate that photo‐sharing is a powerful behavior in augmenting older consumers' well‐being as it enables individual self‐reflection, self‐representation and transforms the individual experience into a collective one. Contributions include, that photo‐sharing acts as a bridge in creating, reinforcing but also breaking bonds among older consumers, also a tension exists between the desire for autonomy and the need for relationships with others, and finally that the digital self is a component of subjective well‐being in older consumers.