Social Media Effects: Self-esteem

Overview

In 2021, more than 4.26 billion people around the world classified themselves as active social media users. That figure included about 70 percent of Americans adults. For many, social media provides a channel of communication with family, friends, and colleagues. For others, it offers a sense of community that they lack in their daily lives. Because social media provides ample opportunity for users to express approval of one another’s posts, tweets, comments, and images, scholars have found that social media use may be closely related to self-esteem. Studying the link between social media and self-esteem among teenagers is particularly important because almost all teens have daily online access, and teenagers are particularly vulnerable to social media threats to self-esteem.

Scholars who study social identity theory have long identified the innate need of human beings to belong to groups, allowing them to identify themselves as insiders rather than outsiders while developing a strong sense of self. Scholars have reported contradictory findings when examining the correlation between self-esteem and social media use. Excessive time on social media has been shown to increase incidences of low self-esteem, anxiety, depression, loneliness, eating disorders, somatic complaints, and cyber victimization. In contrast, other studies have found that social media may improve physical and mental health by providing a sense of community and reducing individual stress. Some researchers have identified a link between low self-esteem and the attractiveness of images posted on social media. Other scholars have linked self-esteem to the frequency of status updates, comments, images uploaded, and participation in discussion groups, suggesting that users with high self-esteem are more likely to post frequently, receive positive comments, and engage in discussions with others.

While there may be significant fluidity in group membership, with individuals belonging to a number of different groups, self-esteem is higher when individuals belong to groups with which they are able to identify because such groups influence the way that individuals define their own worth. Within the field of computer mediated communication, scholars have used social identity theory to examine both self- and group esteem. Between 2005 and 2015, the use of social media expanded dramatically. Studies indicated that social media use rose in all categories: from 55 percent to 76 percent among adolescents, 12 percent to 90 percent among adults 18–29, from 8 percent to 77 percent among adults 30–49, from 5 percent to 51 percent among adults 50–64, and from 2 percent to 35 percent among adults 65 and over. According to the Pew Research Center’s 2018 report, 73 percent of all American adults actively used YouTube, and 68 percent actively used Facebook. In smaller numbers, they also used Instagram (36 percent), Pinterest (27 percent), LinkedIn (25 percent), Twitter (24 percent), and WhatsApp (22 percent). Those numbers grew even more by 2021. In that year, the Pew Research Center reported that 81 percent of adults in the US were active users of YouTube, and 69 percent actively used Facebook. Meanwhile, active Instagram users jumped to 40 percent, LinkedIn users rose to 28 percent, and Pinterest users rose to 31 percent. Newer social media sites like Snapchat and TikTok quickly gained in popularity as well. In 2021, 25 and 21 percent, respectively, of American adults actively used those platforms.

Social media sites use various methods to allow users to express affirmation, which is also called paralinguistic digital affordances. On Facebook, for instance, a “like” may mean approval, or it may simply indicate acknowledgement that a post has been read or an image seen. Thus, a like is used to respond to a cancer diagnosis or a death in the family as well as to a photograph of a new baby or a wedding or prom picture. Studies conducted on social media suggest that online persona are frequently idealized versions of a user’s actual self. This may be unintentional as users strive to appear admirable to their friends or self-select what to share and what to hold back, such as only posting flattering photos. Some users may use imaging software to improve or touch up photos. Misleading profiles may also be the result of individuals consciously choosing to appear as someone extremely different from themselves.

In a study conducted in Thailand, Yokfa Isaranon (2019) found that many Facebook users use the site to present their best selves to other members of their world, thereby boosting self-esteem through both wall posting and photo sharing. Self-esteem was measured in part by the role of affirmation, and Isaranon found that affirmation tends to be higher among moderate users than among occasional users. Self-esteem was highest when Facebook users constantly received positive feedback from other users. Affirmation rates may be boosted by such actions as controlling privacy settings, filtering out unwanted information, and careful selection of friends. Donghee Yvette Wohn, Caleb T. Carr, and Rebecca A. Hayes (2016) found that Facebook users ascribe significant meaning to digital affordances, considering that a high number of likes indicates strong social support from friends. Users who rarely experience likes or other forms of affirmation are more likely than others to suffer from low self-esteem. However, Wohn, Carr, and Hayes found only a weak link between perceived social media support and loneliness.

Applications

Technology and social media scholar Danah Boyd (2014) has spent considerable time among teenagers, and one of the things she has studied is their use of social media. She suggests that contemporary teens use social media to hang out with their friends in the same way that teens from earlier periods socialized at shopping malls or on city streets. Boyd finds that American teens find their sense of community on social media, causing them to consider access to Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter an essential part of their lives. When they are together, adolescents continually post images of what they see and what they are doing; when they are not together, they use social media to discuss what they have seen, heard, and experienced. Teenagers also use social media to track favorite celebrities, feeling that it makes those celebrities a part of their own lives. However, celebrity friending, following, and sharing enhances the commonality of negative comparisons between young people and the idealized images presented by celebrities.

In 2015, the toiletry brand Dove decided to do something about the fact that four out of five Twitter tweets dealing with beauty express negative perceptions of body image, even though 82 percent of females acknowledge that popular body images are unrealistic. Three-fourths of teenagers also admitted to feeling injured by negative comments about them on social media. With its #SpeakBeautiful campaign, Dove promoted the use of positive affirmations to boost self-esteem and self-confidence. The night of the 2015 Academy Awards, Dove invited Boyd and child and adolescent psychologist Dr. Jen Hartstein to respond to negative comments made about on-camera celebrities.

Group identity among teenagers may be based on such characteristics as speech, dress, musical preferences, and appearances, and social media gives teenagers opportunities for sharing information and opinions on all of these. In 2022, according to the Pew Research Center, YouTube was the most accessed site among American teenagers aged 13–17, with 95 percent reporting they had ever used the site, followed by TikTok (67 percent), Instagram (62 percent), Snapchat (59 percent), Facebook (32 percent), and Twitter (23 percent). Social media provides individuals with a myriad of opportunities that allow them to boost self-esteem, such as having a large number of “friends” on TikTok or having a huge following on Twitter. Self-esteem is also boosted when other users approve of a post, tweet, comment, or image. On the other hand, negative impacts of social media include decreased self-esteem levels. Some users may feel disconnected from others, some may feel increasingly dissatisfied with themselves when comparing their looks or their lives to those of other users, and some users may become unhappy or depressed. Some studies have revealed that the more friends a Facebook user has, the more likely that user is to engage in upward comparisons, increasing opportunities for decreased self-esteem. Julia Brailovskaia and Jürgen Margraf (2016) found both positive and negative impacts on a study of 790 Facebooks users and 155 non-Facebook users. Nonusers were somewhat more likely than users to experience depression.

A 2022 study undertaken by researchers at the Pew Research Center looked at the impact of social media on group self-esteem in teenagers. The majority of American teens in that study had a favorable view of social media, reporting that they felt social media helped them maintain connections with friends and provided a place to display their creativity. Overall, 32 percent of teens viewed social media as having a mostly positive effect on their lives, while 9 percent said social media had a mostly negative effect and 59 percent noted a neutral impact from social media platforms. Researchers found that teen girls were more likely to report negative feelings around social media than teen boys. For example, 45 percent of girls said they had felt overwhelmed by drama on social media, compared to 32 percent of boys.

Issues

Tammy K. Vigil and H. Denis Wu (2015) examined college students who used Facebook from five to ten times a day for at least five to ten minutes on each visit. They found that females spent more time than males on Facebook. Ninety percent of students in the study reported having more than five hundred friends, and 20 percent stated that they have more than one thousand friends. The average number of friends for all Facebook users at the time of the study was 338. Anyone “friended” by a user and given access to posts, comments, and images is considered a friend. Some users friend anyone who sends them a friend request, even though some requests come from spammers and hackers. Despite the large number of friends reported by study participants, three-fourths of them acknowledged that they only had regular contact with about twenty friends. Vigil and Wu found that excessive Facebook use led to lower self-esteem and greater life dissatisfaction.

The term cyberbullying refers to threatening, humiliating, mocking, or hurtful behavior online. One of the most notorious incidents involved the suicide of a thirteen-year-old Myspace user who was tricked by the mother of a “friend,” into believing that she was communicating online with a sixteen-year-old boy named Josh who had fallen for her. After weeks of online wooing, “Josh” told the victim in a 2006 post that the world would be better off without her. The mother was indicted in 2008, but the indictment was later overturned. In a 2010 case of cyberbullying, a first-year college student from New Jersey committed suicide after his roommate posted online a surreptitiously captured video of the young man having sex with another male.

While such cases are extreme, cyberbullying occurs daily on social media, and it may lead to low self-esteem and to high depression and loneliness among victims. It may also be responsible for a host of other physical and mental problems. In 2019, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that 15.7 percent of American students had been a vicbim of cyberbullying at some time. Cyberbullying has the most impact on students who may already be suffering from mental health issues and/or low self-esteem. Strong relations with parents have been shown to modify the impact of cyberbullying, but some teens do not share their experiences with their parents.

In a 2014 study that compared 502 American and Korean students, Lee, Lee, Choi, Kim, and Han found that the use of social media is negatively related to body satisfaction. However, social media use was positively related to self-status for Korean students but not for American students. Scholars use the concept of body image as a measurement of an individual’s overall personal satisfaction, and body image is particularly important to teenagers because of the strong desire to fit in and to be approved by peers. Individuals with poor body image may contract eating disorders or may become obsessive about their appearance. Living in a collective society, Korean teenagers are pressured to live up to accepted standards of beauty, to comply with appropriate behaviors, and to compare themselves to one another (Lee et al., 2014). While Americans have more leeway than Koreans in expressing individuality, self-esteem is more important in America than in Korea.

Communication scholars have found that communication is a key factor in forming and maintaining body image perceptions. Mass media is widely accepted as a major factor in body image perceptions because the emphasis on thinness, particularly for females, is a key element in defining beauty. The need for young females to obtain unrealistic body images has been labeled the “Barbie doll syndrome.” The lines between interpersonal communication and mass media have become increasingly blurred on social media, with users sharing images from mass media on a regular basis, so that teenaged social media users may be constantly comparing themselves with thin attractive models and celebrities. A careless comment on social media about someone might spread to large numbers of people through such methods as shares and retweets. Studies have shown that half of all Americans hold negative body images, and girls as young as eight have already begun to diet for weight loss.

Since Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung introduced the concept of extroverts and introverts in the late twentieth century, the subject has been widely studied. The concepts entered mainstream culture with the introduction of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) that used Jungian theory to explain personality types and help individuals understand themselves and their friends of opposite types. When comparing extroverts and introverts, some researchers found that extroverts tended to spend more time on social media than introverts. Extroverts, who are commonly described as being people-oriented, also reported higher numbers of friends and shared more photographs. They also found that extroversion and self-esteem are negatively linked to depression and stress. One study reported that, when compared to nonusers, Facebook users have higher self-esteem as well as higher rates of narcissism, extroversion, life satisfaction, social support, and subjective happiness than non-Facebook users.

Terms & Concepts

Barbie Doll Syndrome: The term has been used by feminists to refer to the selection of the ideal body type as being shaped by Mattel’s popular doll that has been a favorite of children for generations. The doll is tall and slim with an impossibly narrow waistline and a prominent bustline. When little girls of other body types measure themselves against this ideal and fall short, they suffer from low self-esteem, which may lead to excessive dieting. Many develop eating disorders such as anorexia and bulimia. The feeling of being classified as less than perfect may persist into adult life.

Jungian Theories on Extroverts: Jung argued that extroverts, as he labeled them, are externally focused and are strongly influenced by opinions of others. They have no trouble feeling comfortable in a variety of situations, even with people they do not know. Extroverts are very much at home on social media because they enjoy sharing information about themselves and their lives. As polar opposites, introverts are inwardly-focused, and they tend to be private and extremely cautious about what they share on social media.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: Measurement developed by the mother-daughter team Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, who used Jungian theory to explain personality types for personal, educational, and professional use. By answering a series of questions, individuals are classified according to whether they are extroverts/introverts, sensing/intuitive, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving. They are then separated into types such as I/S/F/J or E/N/T/P.

Paralinguistic Digital Affordances: Digital affirmations used on social media to express approval or support. Examples include likes, thumbs up, hearts, sharing, retweets, and +1.

Social Identity Gratification: A term used by social psychologists to explain the relationship between personal and social identities and the role of group membership in overall self-esteem and life satisfaction.

Social Identity Theory: Term used by social scientists to explain the characteristics of intergroup behaviors. The relevance to social media is found in the ways that users develop views on themselves based on their perceptions of how they are viewed within their social media groups.

Somatic Complaints: The term somatic refers to the way individuals deal with their own bodies. Somatic complaints involve references to a particular issue, such as being overweight, having bad hair or skin, being too tall or too short, or generally being dissatisfied with the way one’s body looks or how it performs.

Bibliography

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Wohn, D. Y., Carr, C. T., & Hayes, R. A. (2016). How affective is a “like”? The effect of paralinguistic digital affordances on perceived social support. CyberPsychology Behavior and Social Networking, 19(9), 562–566. doi:10.1089/cyber.2016.0162