Social Media And Its Impact On Society

Selfies help people express themselves in ways they would have never before. You are usually very comfortable with your own self taking pictures and not others, therefore you can be funny, nerdy, or sexy without feeling judged. Time magazine reports that selfies can just be an outlet of self expression and we shouldn't be so consumed with all the selfies floating in cyber space. “Self captured images allow young adults and teens to express their mood states and share important experiences,” says Dr. Andrea Letamendi, a clinical psychologist and research fellow at UCLA. As teens and adolescents try to form their identity, selfies serve as a way to test how they look, and therefore feel, in certain outfits, make-up, poses and places. And because we live in a digital world, selfies provide a way of participating and interacting with that world. Selfies has also allowed women to publicly celebrate their flaws. For example, Demi Lovato has posted selfies to Instagram without any makeup on and has encouraged her fans to do likewise. Other sites have been supporting women to take selfies everyday for a year, regardless of how they

I think the picture shows that in this day and age all we are concerned about is how we look, what pose we just did, what clothes we wear, and how we get judged by other people. We now live in a technology and social media driven world where people post pictures every few minutes of where they are, what there doing, what there wearing, what foods there eating, and every other thing imaginable in this world. There is an endless list of what people tweet, snap, and share that now a days that all we are doing. I think that sometimes social media make us self centered because all social media has become is us just talking about ourselves and our lives. Social media has also created people who are unaware of the actual world around them not the social media driven world online.

Journalist Anna Hart argues this is the new era of people sharing selfies on a daily basis, that society has reached into “the age vanity, the digital vanity, you can argue no generation is immune from the selfie craze” (Hart,2014). A selfie has a variety of audiences from children capturing their best look to The Pope, it’s the new way of capturing evidence of your interaction with different people, better than asking for an autograph. However, in Hart’s (2014) article she argues that the idea that there is a need to look a certain way all of the time, especially when you are posting a selfie on social media, it almost has to be perceived in a positive way, showing the best selfie. Hart (2014) said “I need to look healthy, glossy and polished

How selfies have a positive effect on modern ideals of beauty and attractiveness is that it allows people to express themselves in their own form.

Social media is a variety of platforms provided to the public as a medium for expression and communication. Seemingly, social media could be viewed as a positive contribution to society, but one must consider the underlying effects of society. Many of us don’t take into account the role that social media plays in the way we perceive things, think, and live our lives. Social media plays a critical part in societal norms. “Social norms are rules of conduct that governs interactions among individuals within a reference group. Norm violations can often provoke disapproval and loss of esteem,” (Young, 2007). People seek approval or validation by their peers or other individuals in society; in effect, societal norms are generally abided by many individuals. “People want to be accepted by others in their social environment and often end up conforming to behaviors that they believe the majority holds as appropriate,”(Power, 2011). Often times societal norms create a strong scrutiny of individuals, which in turn can create poor body image, body dissatisfaction, and more. Poor body image and body dissatisfaction can be the basis for development of an eating disorder. “ The best known contributor to both clinical eating disorders and sub clinical cases of disordered eating is negative body image and high body dissatisfaction,”(NEDA). There are various types of eating disorders; “All feature serious disturbances in eating behaviors and weight regulation,” (Eating Disorders: More Than

“ … the late Susan Sontag argues that images — particularly photographs — carry the risk of undermining true things and genuine experiences, as well as the danger of upending our understanding of art. “Knowing a great deal about what is in the world (art, catastrophe, the beauties of nature) through photographic images,” Sontag notes, “people are frequently disappointed, surprised, unmoved when they see the real thing” (Rosen). Sontag says that people take so many photos to the point, that it has a very good chance of devaluing the real event or people will be upset and disappointed when they see the real thing because they had such high expectations and the photograph was altered so it manipulates their expectations. “Ms. Morie said selfies are essentially avatars and foresees a day when they will be constructed even more to our liking (superhero physiques, fairy-tale tresses). As we conduct more of our life online she suspects they will become more how we see ourselves than our real selves”(Murphy). Murphy supports this by saying that people buy these apps to change their appearance so that people won’t see how they really look. People could also “catfish”, meaning they use other people’s picture to portray as them because they are unhappy with how they look. At the end, when people go to see the real thing, either a place like the Eiffel tower or the statue of liberty, or a person they met on Instagram or some kind of dating website, they have a good chance of being disappointed. Their feelings will change because the photo was photoshopped with a bunch of filters and making things smaller where they shouldn’t be and just isn’t the same as they originally saw it. People who take selfies tend to be insecure and need other people’s approval to boost their confidence. Murphy shows that selfie takers are hungry for love and some

The average person is on their phone for at least 90 minutes (Lin). Within those 90 minutes, many could be impacted with their self-confidence from social media. Body image in the media plays a powerful role in influencing a woman's appearance (Ballaro). When looking through media, many would either see a positive or a negative effect on women, but no matter which way they look at it, it affects them greatly. “Mental image an individual holds their own appearance which they believe represents the way other perceives himself” (Ballaro). In movies and the music production constantly present an ideal and beautiful body for women. When many see these sights of women, they look at their own bodies, many times different from what is presented in the media; they soon begin to think they aren't beautiful. Having terrible self-confidence can have outcomes of worry and depression. Looking at things in a negative way, with an extreme focus on the body can lead to a sense of overly self-focused on body image (Bryan). A positive outcome would lead to self-confidence and more self-value. Media can end up leading the women to a negative or positive effect on body image. Media either way will impact a woman's boost of

As stated above, the way an individual portrays themselves online affects how others perceive them. When posting a selfie, the subject of the photo and others perceptions of the photo vary. Typically, one’s views on how other people perceive them are accurate, however occasionally a meta-perceptual trait blind spot can occur. A trait blind spot is when other people can see one’s traits accurately, however the individual cannot. The self-serving bias is a type of trait blindspot where one overestimates their positive traits and underestimates their negative traits. A study (Re, Wang, He, & Rule, 2016) found that the self-serving bias affects selfies because the subjects tend to see themselves as more attractive and likeable than the average

While this is a big step for the media, they are only part of a few companies that promote self-beauty/worth. How we perceive ourselves is a big part of interpersonal communication. If we feel ugly or don’t look our best, it will show on us and how we treat others. When you feel your best, you feel as if you could run the world and nothing can ruin your day, making it easier for people to approach you and making it so you have a better feeling about yourself. Poor self-perception affects how we communicate, verbally and nonverbally. When you are chosen last for soccer, your friends are implying that you are not great at sports. There are many more examples of social interactions that shape our personality and self-esteem. Until we figure out who we are, we use the opinions/reflections of others. Based on the impressions and how we view ourselves we will stereotype, judge, and create impression formations of others. Until we have better role models our views of ourselves and other will be

N.D. Wilson once said "I am here to paint you a picture of the world I see" and through these words I believe every selfie we share to the world is how you wish to portray to the world who you really are. Everyday millions of selfies are taken by people to express how they would like to look to others. The life of a typical teen is usually defined by the amount of selfies that are shown on their social media. Teenagers nowadays don 't often take the time to realize what their selfies mean. When we take selfies, we often don’t realize what we put up and we make people think that the “fake” pictures we put up are actually what we really are. In my 'true selfie ' I portrayed one of my strongest beliefs by using lighting effects, clothing, and my location.

While many people put off and ignore the issue of social media and its downfalls, others say that people should think about how our lives are being affected by this advancement in technology, including, lack of human contact and precious time being lost due to consumption with social media. Social media is currently a highly controversial topic in which numerous people have mixed feelings. Society has typically viewed new advancements in technology as beneficial and a sign of success within their country. But, has it solely caused successful outcomes, or are there downfalls to these advancements?

Many people while traveling the world take selfies with famous landmarks or sculptures in the background and when they upload them to social media it’s for the background, not their face. These selfies are more about the context than the selfie. Another reason why selfies aren’t bad is because they boost self confidence in many teens worldwide. All people love to feel good about themselves, selfies are the most common way for teens to boost their confidence. A survey done by NBC News Today states that 65% of teens say seeing their selfies on the internet boost their self confidence and “present their best face to the world”. Another survey done by NBC News today also states that 55% of girls and 34% of boys say social media already makes them feel more self conscious about their appearance.(Website #2) If that’s the case,

Social Media has a massive impact on a person’s self-presentation because of the different trends where everyone wants to fit in with society’s expectations of what we should look like. Celebrities are made to be our role models, however, magazines photoshop and make them more toned and a lot slimmer, which makes young people want to make their bodies more like theirs. This then leads to the modern generation becoming self-conscious because they feel they have to fit in and achieve an ideal self that fits in with those around them.

The concept of a self-image is not a new idea as the involvement of self-portraits pre-dates the Internet and evolving technology.

The term ‘social media’ has become a broad-term to describe a large number of online systems that serve as a platform for the generation, and distribution of user-generated content. Social media creates a virtual social space, where a large number of users come together and interact with one another. These interactions can be either structured, such as responses that are moderated on blogs, semi-structured, such as a discussion between an extended network on Facebook, or unstructured, such as the anarchial functioning of Twitter.