The Psychology of Inclusion on New Media Platforms and the Online Communication

Abstract

Following the tabooistic and rejective attitude of the 20th century, in the processing and announcement method of the 21st century, there is is a growing emphasis on sharing various life events on the platforms of new media (Web 2.0). Such platforms can be social media sites or one of the file or video sharing pages or blogs. In addition to presenting user habits shaped by the COVID pandemic, which have temporarily changed the online communication, I aim to answer the question of how new media (Web 2.0) becomes the platform of communal loss for users of different ages, genders, social statuses, and diverse Internet usage habits and socialization. I attempt to present the comprehensive picture of the transformation of personal loss into communal grief experience on the different platforms of new media and what supportive acts help the person who shares his/her loss experience in the processing of the events. By means of feedback (reactions, comments, replies with different emoticons), the user’s loss experience “expands” into communal loss experience. In the present research paper, the findings of the international discipline are only applied to Hungary (its current population is 9.6 million), a Central Eastern European country where, according to a representative study published in 2015, there are 5 million Facebook users.