The Role of Social Media in Shaping Industrial Design Practices: Insights from Turkish Practitioners

Abstract

With the inclusion of internet technology in daily life, individuals have tended to conduct their social interactions in virtual environments. Social networking platforms, which bring together millions of people, have allowed people to move a large part of their living spaces to the virtual environment. These platforms, called social media, are occupying a more prominent place in our life day by day. Social media attracts great attention from users across a wide age range due to its interactive nature that allows interaction and gives individuals the opportunity to express their personal opinions. This aim of the study is to examine the use of visual-based social media by industrial designers in Turkey and to analyse their usage habits. Since the research aims to measure the impact of social media on the industrial design profession, social media platforms were limited and the evaluation was made through visual interaction-based social media platforms. During the data collection phase of the research, information was collected through a questionnaire distributed over the Internet to 269 industrial designers. The findings show that social media usage is inversely proportional to age; in other words, as age progresses, the duration of social media usage tends to shorten. It was determined that the device that users most frequently use to access social media platforms is the smartphone. In addition, statistical data on social media usage purposes were obtained.