The influence of the group on the individual in the digital environment

This thesis addresses the influence of the group on individuals over time, summarizing relevant experiments to clarify and explore conformity behavior, its antecedents, and the factors that influence it. It aims to explore the relationship between conformity and the digitization of the environment, to deepen interest in this issue, and to provide a basis for further discussion on how the use of social networking sites influence conformity behavior. The theoretical part includes definitions of different terms such as social groups, cyber-anthropology, conformity, and the reasons and factors that lead to conforming behaviour have been explained. Furthermore, it discusses the influence of society on individuals from the perspective of past history to the present day, as well as a summary of various relevant experiments and studies conducted on this topic. The findings from the theoretical part are then used in the practical part to develop a questionnaire survey, used to test both the hypotheses from previous experiments, and also those related to social network use and conformity rates. The questionnaire survey involved 262 respondents with varying levels of time spent online, and the results confirm the occurrence of conforming behavior in the digital environment.