MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
If you spend any time at all on social media, then you've seen plenty of photos of people on vacation or in photogenic spots. And it turns out that those images have certain effects.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
An unsurprising reaction is you feel kind of bad because you're not somewhere nice. A more surprising reaction is that people decide they do not want to go there.
MARTIN: Researcher Zoe Lu of Tulane University discovered this by accident.
ZOE LU: When I posted the marriage proposal photos on my social network (laughter), I received quite a lot of likes. But when I asked my relatives or my close friends, they would avoid going to that same place for their marriage proposal.
INSKEEP: Lu looked into this and discovered that people generally decide, well, that spot's taken.
LU: We don't want to be anyone. We want to be someone. So to be someone means you cannot be exactly the same as others. You have to have something unique to you.
MARTIN: Heidi Mitchell wrote about the study for the Wall Street Journal.
HEIDI MITCHELL: So if I'm thinking about maybe going to a new destination like somewhere in Egypt, but I see somebody with a selfie in there, it might dissuade me from going 'cause it may feel a little bit like they own that destination.
MARTIN: So what does this mean for social media influencers? They show up in fancy spots hoping to persuade you to go.
INSKEEP: Well, researcher Zoe Lu says this can work - just not all the time.
LU: Sometimes you want to stand out. You want to be unique. But sometimes you want to be just the same as your friends or your family.
INSKEEP: If you see photos of a concert, it may make you want to go. And if I see photos of food that Michel has brought to NPR, you'd want to come here. It's what makes me feel like I should be at work.
MARTIN: That part.
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