This is a great psychology-related question. Blue is the color of the intellect, the mind, making it the color of communication and when you think about social media, it’s all about communicating.
Think about how many photos you post on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, how many comments you leave on a post, and how many likes you get on a post. If you think about the amount of time you spend on these social media platforms and how many times you interact with people, that’s all about communicating.
Blue is a color that is often associated with trust and reliability. It’s also the color of sky and sea – hence abundant in nature. Here is how the London Image Institue defines different colors:
Although a lot of articles on the internet suggest that blue indicates calmness and trust, it has been shown in placebo drug trials as a depressant rather than a stimulant. This research suggests:
In a single-blind experiment showing the effect of placebo Blackwell et al asked 100 medical students to participate in an experiment in which they would receive either a sedative or stimulant drug.” All of the 56 students who volunteered in fact received either a blue or a pink placebo. Subjects taking the blue placebos felt less alert (66%) than those taking the pink (26%) and also more drowsy (72% v 37% respectively).
British Medical Journal 313 – Dec 1996
Besides the meanings of the usage of the color blue that you can find online, according to Verywell Mind, blue is preferred by men – and the founders of most social media sites are men (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter). If you think about it, Bumble is yellow and the color yellow is preferred by women.
Do you think there was a CEO Button at play while deciding these colors? Comment below!
