Social Media & Self Esteem
It’s lunch time at school, and as I sit in the staff room I glance out the window and observe all the different behaviours of various social groups. There are a few kids running around playing ball games, others eating their lunches and then there are small pockets of students sitting around on their phones! There is limited ‘face to face’ socialization occurring, as these students are far too concerned with what is going on in their ‘cyber social world’. Which brings me to the question ‘What’s the big deal with Facebook? What are we really using it for? How does it affect us?’
How many of you have posted something on facebook, it received ‘more likes’ than you were expecting and you received that nice warm fuzzy feeling inside, because you felt ‘liked’ and ‘accepted’ by your perceived FB friends? I HAVE! I’m not going to lie, I use to write specific types of status’s and post particular pictures and selfies to receive an ego boost and make me feel better about myself! But what happens when something you post doesn’t get the response you were hoping for? Instead you receive nasty comments, and are then at the mercy of the negative opinions of others. You not only receive a huge ego bruising but a feeling of negative self worth. It is extremely important to be ‘responsible’ with the use of social media, just to take care of your own mental, emotional and social health.
So that is just the ‘tip’ of the iceberg in relation to ‘our’ personal posts – what we are ‘consciously aware’ of. However, what about when we are scrolling through our feed and observing the lives of others? How does THAT effect our self worth on a subconscious level? A study by Christopher Carpenter in 2012 found that ‘social networking in general allows the user a great deal of control over how he or she is presented to and perceived by peers and other users’. Facebook and instagram in particular are the main social networking platforms we use to ‘broadcast’ the ‘highlight’ reel of our lives. We use it to paint a picture to the world of ‘who we are’ and what our life is like, to the point that this effects how we see and feel about ourselves. Scrolling through our social media feeds, it is extremely important to be aware and mindful of the ‘feature’ reel constantly playing in front of our eyes, and how this can make us feel about ‘our’ lives. We need to keep in mind that 9 times out of 10 things are not always as they seem, and we do not need to be made to feel ‘inadequate’ about who we are or our lives, just because someone else’s ‘highlight’ reel seems a little more glamorous than ours.
So the next time you have logged into your Facebook or instagram account and find yourself mindlessly observing the lives of others, take a moment to reflect on how you are feeling! If at any point what you see in front of your eyes makes you feel bad about who you are or your life, then STOP scrolling immediately and get rid of that negativity. It is time to become ‘aware’ of how certain things make us feel before it manifests into a problem so complex we are unable to do anything about it without professional help. So it’s time to take control of our thoughts and feelings – get rid of negative social media friends and leave only room for positive people, positive self-talk and positive feelings about yourself!
