The use of social media especially among the adolescents has been on the rise. As of January a third of the world’s population were using social media platforms (Samaha " Hawi, 1). The increase in the use of social media is about 10% annually (Samaha, M. " Hawi, 1). Social media is used for purposes such as collecting information, entertainment, and raising awareness on various life issues, and to expand knowledge on the lifestyles of others (Sonmez " Turanzi, 1). In the current times, most people use social media sites to learn about ideal body features and sizes. The increase in the consumption of social media platforms has triggered debates on the effects of social media use on self-esteem of the individuals by examining its effects on the life satisfaction and body dissatisfaction (Ferguson, Munoz, Garza, " Galindo, 1). Self-esteem implies the acceptance and sense of worth of an individual. In a more general sense, it is one’s perspective of their self-worth (Sonmez " Turanzi, 3) . There is a direct correlation between social media and self-esteem. In fact, for many social media users, the harm that arises from social media is far much more than the benefits. Social media affects the self-esteem of the individuals in several ways.
The Social Media Effects on Self-Esteem
The Social Media Advertisements
Social media advertisement has been on the rise in the recent times due to the huge number of recipients. The social networks use the users’ information to focus on relevant advertisements. The social media networks align their marketing to a target audience which may result into high sales. Social networks use social media personality to achieve their advertisements. The Internet personalities, in their advertisements portray certain characters to shape the mentality of the users. The users may have self-esteem thinking that the way of life of the Internet personalities is the most appropriate. The social media cause a series of comparisons between individuals (Sonmez E, " Turanzi, 2).
The Desire for a Perfect Life
People tend to post the best versions of themselves in social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Social media users take into account the fact that whatever they see in the social media platforms may not necessarily be true. Most of the social media content may be highly orchestrated, especially from the brands or the celebrities. A study by Zimmerman (1) correlates the time spent in social media platforms with stress. The users tend to forget that one the posted pictures may be after a series of modifications. There is a growing obsession in the social media sites of taking pictures, notably the “selfies” (Distorted Reality 14). Social media sites such as Instagram and Snapchat are specifically devoted for photos. The sites have lenses and filters to improve the quality of the pictures. The filters also help in softening the look of the skins and alter the general physical appearance. The social media users tend to highly concentrate on the looks of others and feel sorry for their looks. The users may tend to have a distorted view of their looks and subsequently suffer from depression or even mental disorder. The adolescents get the pressure of creating personal brands when they are still not old enough. The social media sites show the celebrities as having “perfect” lives. The users, therefore, develop the desire to achieve perfections in their looks. The increased envy in the platforms is a major cause of self-esteem. The individuals tend to have lower levels of self-satisfaction.
Curating of Online Life
Most social media users strive to equate self-worth with the social media profiles. The individuals’ social media existence is mainly about curating of the virtual selves. The consumers of the social media platforms highly tinker their profiles, reinvent their appearance, thus becoming identity curators. There is also the choice of selecting of what to post and what not to post. In platforms such as Facebook, the users are in a constant revisiting and rewriting of the virtual life stories. In majority cases, the presentation in the social media sites may be far from the real life story. Dependent on one’s level of inclination, the social media profiles may just be pure fiction. The curated selves can easily be manipulated as they are two separate entities. The self-curation results into lower self-esteem for individuals as they don’t easily accept themselves as they are. The pictures and the posts are virtual pieces or possessions of us. The teenagers creating false may have depression as they try to bridge the gap between their real self and the social media depiction. Failure to achieve the standards may make the teenagers consider themselves as failures. They may have low levels of satisfactions of their achievements.
The Obsession with Likes and Comments
There is a growing concern for attention from the social media sites by the users. Popular have a honest belief that their self-worth, beauty, and popularity is dependent on their lives in social media. The practice has an insane damage to the individual’s self-esteem as it may be impossible, even stressing, to achieve their target of comments and likes. The effects can be more when the users are comparing themselves with celebrities. In cases where the teenagers fail to get likes or comments from their posts, they may get depressed and try and edit or even delete their posts which may cause even more serious problems on their self-perception. Social media makes us equate self-worth with approval or the attention from the sites which should not be the ultimate measure of self-worth. Many people also pressurize themselves in spending in designer clothes to post in social media sites. The over concentration in social media presentation goes to an extent of making the users not concentrate on the basic needs as they are possessed as they focused on what other people perceive about themselves. The extreme value of the social media metrics has hugely lowered the self-esteem of the users as they try to equate their worth with the statistics. The users may end up having a negative perception about their bodies when they fail to get adequate attention (Sonmez " Turanzi 6).
False Connections
Making distinction between the meaningful relationship one has with friends in the real world and the many, but casual social media relationships they form in the social media sites. The users’ social skills and real world relationships can be highly affected when they concentrate too much on the casual relationships they build in the platforms at the expense of the real world friendships. Most teenagers are more interested in impressing their peers rather than reasoning maturely in their social media presentations. The teenagers might to try their level best to create a huge amount of following at the expense of their dignity. They may post pictures revealing their nakedness as they tend to gain connections online. The weight given to cyberspace connections is on the rise. People make friendships and connections that are not real. The social media relationships in many scenarios do not have an equal give and take. Many individuals with social media anxiety may prefer chatting with casual friends rather than have the challenge of socializing in person. They may fail to attend their friends’ parties but rather hide behind their computers “socializing”.
The Folly of the Social Media Tutorials
Social media platforms provide a lot of information on the way of doing things. There are personal posts and brands on how to prepare various delicacies or making perfect eyebrows. The tutorials are created by experts in the given fields who go ahead to further edit their presentations so that they are “perfect”. The social media users may go ahead to copy the tutorials and fail badly as they are not experts. The implication can be low self-esteem (Sonmez " Turanzi, 2017).
Disruption of Emotional Lives
Social media lives highly interrupt healthy habits in life such as hanging with family and friends, going for nature walks, watching and helping kids as they play. It makes people not fully engage in healthy activities as the core interest is to document the activities so that they can look good on social media. The consequences can be dire such as depression and low self-esteem.
The Judgmental Nature of Social Media
Social media can really make people feel bad about themselves because of its judgmental nature. Some people may mock other in the platforms as a way of achieving their happiness. Some online users feel satisfied by judging the opinions of others for their views on career choices, political standing, the photos they post, and the general presentation of their posts. Most users are intolerant and mean to accept anything that is not in line with their point of view (Williams " Ricciardelli, 391) Therefore, it becomes very difficult for someone to freely share out their opinions on various social issues. When people are judged based on their social medias appearance, they may feel bad about themselves have low self-esteem as a result. Social media also highly values people on their physical appearance (Sonmez " Turanzi, 2017). People who may not have the “perfect” appearance may end up stressing themselves on how to improve because of the critics. There are also many incidences of social media bullying impacting negatively on the self-worth of the victims.
Conclusions
It is of no doubt that the use of social media platforms can have numerous negative outcomes on the self-esteem of the individuals. Social media sites expose the individuals to some virtual competition where people tend to compete with each other over who is way ahead of the peers. As people grow with the social media culture, they become slaves of the platforms at the expense of their self-esteem. The use of social media especially by the teenagers is a culture that is not going away soon but it has grave mental and self-esteem related issues. The users of social media should focus on the benefits that they may accrue from the social media sites such as gaining new knowledge but not use it as a platform for unhealthy competition based on looks. Keen monitoring of social media sites should be implemented to reduce the cases of cyber bullying. Also, the online users should be keen when reacting to the opinions of others on the general life issues.
Works Cited
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Zimmerman, A. (2018). Social Media: The Enemy of Body Positivity. Washington Square News,
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Sonmez E, " Turanzi, E. (2017). Examining Body-Related Decisions of the University Students:
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