Does Social Media affect your Food Choices?

Social Media…. Hmmmmmm…. Hope you had enough with it!!! But, STOP. Have you ever wondered that social media has an effect on your day-to-day food choices??? Well, if you’re interested, just read along.

Social media has become bread and butter for our lives. So why not on your food choices? There’re thousands of pages in Facebook dedicated to food all over the world. (Food in terms of restaurants, cafes, bars, coffee shops, bakeries, food retailers and many more food brands). 

Can you remember the last time you craved for a food that was on a Facebook page or an Ad? For me, it’s Nutella. They were very good at posting yummilicious pictures of Nutella foodstuff. Following are some, that made me crazy. (Taken from the official Facebook fan page of Nutella Sri Lanka)

Social media could change your views on food by seconds. If somebody has gone to a particular restaurant and posted a photo of what she/he has eaten, if it looks nice and comments are good, we also crave to have that as soon as possible. Even though, I don’t know the person who posted that, we still didn't care as long as the food looked good. According to a survey (Taste of the Nation) conducted by Deloitte, a business advisory firm by using 3,000 consumers from across the UK reveals 61% of 18 - 34 year olds consult social media when deciding on their eating or drinking out destination. Well, that’s how it goes. And even if you want to find out the nearest restaurant to have your dinner, it’s just a one click away.

Basically, through social media, you could get all these things done by seconds.

• Search for a place to eat
• Their menu or best selling items recommended by others
• Share your pictures of enjoying what you ordered
• Search for a recipe + cooking tips of what you've enjoyed most
• Reviews of others….. Simply anything.

But there’s a downside as well. If somebody is unhappy or had a horrible experience with a certain food brand, they might post it on Facebook fan page or tweeted it on public and obviously people who thought of going to that place to eat would hesitate a bit or consider choosing another place.

Well, there’s no doubt that social media and digital technologies have altered our food choices a lot. And even our food choices could be influenced by the people we've never met or even seen thanks to social media. Well, that's it for today's post. Hope you enjoyed it. Love to hear your views too :)