Social Media And Low Self-Esteem Levels

We live in an era ruled by social media, primarily when it comes to teenagers, social media is used for everything. From communicating with family and friends to being used as a news outlet, and even advertisement for business and companies. This article is titled “Social Media: What's Not to Like,” written by Alison Pearce Stevens. The topic of this essay is the effect social media can have on teenagers. Social media, on one hand, can be used as a great way to share with the world and boost teens’ self-esteem. On the other hand, social media can be used as a place for bullying, body shaming and can cause depression or even suicide in teens.

Social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) offers infinite connections and the ability to express oneself to the world. But are these connections and images of self-based upon fact or fiction? Through selective self-presentation, people often present the “ideal self” instead of the “actual self” in the online environment to achieve the feeling of positive self-esteem. In “The Way We Live Now: I Tweet, Therefore I Am”, Peggy Orenstein writes of how her Twitter posts reflected an idealized version of her life. Two studies support the hypothesis that such editing can have a positive effect on personal self-esteem. “Mirror, Mirror on my Facebook Wall: Effects of Exposure to Facebook on Self-Esteem” by Amy Gonzales presents a study demonstrating

Social media influences a teenager's self-esteem because it can lower or boost their self-esteem. It can lower a teenager's self-esteem by having cyberbullies on the internet putting them down with their negative opinions of the teen which can also drive the teens to feel hurt, or discourgaed by letting others opinions get to them. Social media can boost a teenager’s self-esteem by having a lots of friends or followers, because they’ll feel cool and popular. It can also boost their self-esteem because if they post a selfie of themselves on social media and everybody is commenting on how pretty or how nice they look, they will feel

Clarissa Silva article in the Huffington Post delves into social media’s impact on self-esteem. As a behavioral scientist, her interest in the matter relates to her field. She also gets the help of other experts Dr. Jennifer Rhodes, Natalia Lusinski, and Dr. Suzana Flores to help with her research. Silva states that “social media is linked to higher levels of loneliness, envy, anxiety, depression, narcissism and decreased social skills" (1). Then outlines her research findings using rhetorical appeals.

Social media is described, by the Merriam-Webster dictionary (2015), as “forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as videos)”. As few as 10 years ago the term social media was yet to be coined, but within that decade the use of these blogs, websites and sharing platforms has increased exponentially with no plateau in sight. From creating Instagram accounts for household pets, to sharing Halloween themed baking ideas over Pinterest, people today have access to social media outlets for almost everything. Today about 74% of people ages 18-65 use some form of a social networking site (Pew, 2014). Facebook takes the lead in social media usage with about 71% of those adults. LinkedIn and Pinterest are tied for second at 28% of users, 26% use Instagram, and Twitter falls last in the top 5 most used social medias with 23% of users (Pew, 2014). In September of 2013 the Pew Research Center measured that 90% of adults ages 18-29 used these social media outlets on a daily basis, which is an astonishing increase from the 9% that was measured in February 2005 (Pew, 2014). Due to the fact that young adults are increasingly involving themselves in these online platforms, it is very important to understand the long term and psychological effects (such as depression, social anxiety,

Communication barriers are not the only issue that has been brought on by social media. Extensive social media use has also been known to affect a person’s self-esteem. Some individuals suffer from a low self-esteem and limit themselves to social media in hopes to create a different image of them. According to Charles Cooley, “The thing that moves us to pride or shame is not the mere mechanical reflection of ourselves, but an imputed sentiment, the imagined effect of this reflection upon another's mind" (Morine, 2009). For some teens and young adults, social media may help them open up and achieve a higher self-esteem. On the other hand, social media on other teens and young adults may have a completely opposite effect. In an article titled, Is Facebook Making Your Child Depressed, it is stated that social media websites such as Facebook “can create a skewed reality that makes teens feel alienated” (PR, 2012). When a person, that is not completely happy with their life, goes onto social media and reads all about other people enjoying a multitude of activities and enjoying their lives this could

There are two possible ways that the use of social networking sites can affect a person’s self esteem. According to a study conducted by Amy L. Gonzales and Jeffrey T. Hancock, Facebook helps amplify students’ level of self-esteem. They explained in their study that when people post something on their profile, they have the opportunity to filter the negative information that they would not like to be exposed, and only publicize the information that they consider as positive. By doing this, people can build an ideal image of themselves online, which consequently increase the level of their self-esteem (Gonzales and Hancock, 2011). On the other hand, the study conducted by The University of Gothenburg in Sweden, which

Social media has become one of the most popular sources of communication for the upcoming generation. For young people growing up in today’s society, social media outlets such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter have provided pictures and news that have become the first thing that their eyes see in the morning and the last thing that they see before bed. These pictures have provided unrealistic standards as to what is considered beautiful in today’s society. As young people refer to these images as a form of comparison, it has created harmful circumstances. These influences on the lives of young people have forced them to take extreme measures and in some cases, has been the cause of death. Social media in today’s society has proven to

Would you consider yourself an important person? The majority of young people in today’s society would say that they indeed are important, as opposed to the very few numbers of people who felt this way in the 1950’s, according to Jean Twenge in her book Generation Me. Debora Lima agrees with Twenge and suggests that this is caused by social media in her article “Social media plays large part in self image.” Cathy Payne also agrees as she explains the inflation of cosmetic surgeries in her article “Botox or your bills? Plastic surgery wins out.” Twenge, Payne, and Lima all agree that there is a change in self-image in today’s young society, yet they all argue different sub points on this subject. Overall, there has been a noticeable change in self-image.

In the world we live in today, people have the opportunity to interact with one another due to the advancement in technology. For many years people relied on the traditional ways of communications, for example pay phones, send letters, a house phone, in person and they even used web cam’s. Presently, people rely on modern day methods of communication such as sending text messages, emails or even messaging via social. The development of the internet has made it so much easier for people to communicate that Social Media has become the place where people interact more than ever in a mere second.

Social Media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube are web-based activities that provide individuals access to build a public or a semi-public profile within a confined system, connect and find users that they share a connection with as well as view and navigate the list of connections that are made by other participants of the systems (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). Social media is widely used by young adults contributing to about 84% of the total usage (Smith, 2011). Some of the popular reasons for widespread use of social media are staying in touch with near and dear ones especially with friends and family, making new friends, following famous politicians and celebrities and also in search of potential relationships (Smith, 2011). However as the use of social media becomes more widespread, we cannot help but express concerns over the effects that social media usage may have on our behavior. Over the past couple of decades, research has strongly linked social media usage with negative behavioral outcomes and is known to affect one’s overall well-being. This essay will begin by discussing some of the behavioral issues that result from social media usage, followed by criticisms of this argument. The recommendation will then highlight some ways by which the behavioural problems could be dealt with, acknowledging that self-monitoring and self-regulation are the main ways to tackle the issue.

Currently, there is a significant amount of individuals with low self-esteem in the world. Each day this number increases because of the discouragement of being unique. Doctor Joe Rubino recently stated that “85% of the world’s population is affected by low self-esteem.” In recent times, the media, Adobe Photoshop, and professional modeling have become prevalent in lives. These sources of negativity are the significant causes of this growing problem of low self-esteem.

Instagram impacts user’s self-image and self-esteem. Young girls and boys are being shot down by users not liking their image, commenting, or even sharing one’s post. Americans check Instagram multiple times a day, because they are looking to see how many likes, or comments they get. If these users’ do not get a certain amount of likes that exceeds their expectations they think, “I’m I pretty enough?”, “is the picture taken well?”, or “does anyone like me?”. This breaks down young Americans emotional health and well-being. Americans today that use Instagram are commenting publicly about how their self-esteem was jeopardized because of this form of social media. For example, Michelle Linker states “I feel anxiety over how many likes I get after I post a picture. If I get two likes, I feel like, what’s wrong with me? Some people judge Instagram by deleting photos that don’t get enough likes” (Gajanan). This quote is an example of how Instagram effects user’s emotionally. Some users even check their “like” count multiple times a day once uploaded for

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.

Most people think that peer pressure is one of the leading cause of low self-esteem ,we read about young adult going through teen issues such as bullying , fighting and many more other issues but in 2017 things have changed .Many teenagers are obsessed with social media sites such as Facebook, Snap chat, or even Instagram . these sites were either design for reconnection with lost family or friends to showing people bit a piece what you do on a day to day basis but now that’s not the case. Self -esteem is when an individual has confidence and satisfaction in themselves with the changes in how social media works in this day and age self-esteem is one of the issues it affects. Social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and