Abstract
As media has become increasingly prevalent in our modern society, there have been rising concerns as to how this might be affecting younger generations since they are growing up in a world that relies heavily on technology. More specifically, the focus shifts to social media as it continues to rise in prevalence and popularity. This paper evaluates the major considerations of social media’s effects on adolescents physiologically and therefore, also behaviorally in regards to their self esteem and ability to relate and interact with other people. After analyzing and synthesizing peer-reviewed articles, it seems there is a correlation between social media and many negative effects on adolescents in a variety of respects. While there are some inconsistencies in the research, based on factors such as the amount of usage, racial differences, background, and type of social media site, it is difficult to get an accurate overall consensus. Thus, there needs to be more research conducted to grasp a more comprehensive conclusion, as well as to potentially determine how to stop these negative outcomes that are occurring in younger generations. Such research could potentially change the future of social media and reduce the risk of it running the upcoming generations’ lives.
Keywords: social media, adolescents, the brain, self esteem, behavior, relationships
Effects of Social Media on Adolescent Self-Esteem
Amanda Carlson, Kate Dunsmore, Lauren Heres, Emma Springer, and Reagan Stancil
University of Georgia
How is social media impacting adolescents’ self-esteem?
Behavioral Effects
· In general, the more time spent on social media and photo sharing, the more likely there is to be negative effects on the behavior
· Appearance pressures have been found to predict other appearance changing strategies among adolescents, such as dieting and exercise behaviors (Vries, Peter, Nikken & Graaf, 2014).
· Exposure to manipulated Instagram photos leads to lower body satisfaction in comparison to exposure to non-manipulated photos.
· The fact that the girls believed that the presented Instagram photos showed a representative view of reality and did not notice the reshaping of the bodies reinforces concerns (Kleemans, 2016).
· Out of 496 adolescent girls, 13.2% have suffered from an eating disorder by age 20 (NEDA, 2014), however, there is little research around as to if this can be correlated to social media use increase.
Relational Effects
· 59% of teens in romantic relationships feel that through social media, they are more connected with their significant other’s life as well as share their emotions about how much they care about their significant other (Lenhart, 2015).
· Research suggests that individuals that are not in a romantic relationship are more prone to developing addictive social media use than people who have partners (Andreassen, Pallesen & Griffiths, 2017).
· Social media has become a breeding ground for teenage drama; 31% of social media users have fought with a friend over something that happened online, plummeting self-esteem from online miscommunication (Lenhart, 2015).
Physiological Effects
- One study assessed addictive social media use manifesting as reducing negative feelings, experiencing pleasure, suffering distress without use, sacrificing other obligations and areas of life, and desiring to control use without success (Andreaseen, Pallesen & Griffiths, 2017). These specific categories reflect mood modification, tolerance and craving, withdrawal, conflict and social impairment, and relapse.
- Something as seemingly insignificant as a “like” on a social media post serves as a quantifiable social endorsement (Sherman, Payton, Hernandez, Greenfield & Dapretto, 2016).
- Social acceptance triggers stronger brain activity in the ventral striatum in a reward processing sense, similar to the reaction of receiving money or a pleasant taste (Crone and Konijn, 2018).
Conclusion & Limitations
- The impressionable minds of adolescents are highly responsive to the feedback that is force fed to them by social media.
- Striving for social acceptance and to be “perfect”, social media can lead to adolescents not appreciating who they are.
- The majority of teens surveyed reported an increase in relational satisfaction as well as connection to their intimate partner. In contrast, a significant portion of those surveyed also reported that jealousy between others who interact with their significant other increased as well.
- The ways that social media affects adolescents today are becoming an evermore physiological dependence as opposed to a way to connect. As studies above showed, humans can obtain pleasure through social acceptance, thus releasing dopamine and causing a high. Not only does this high lead to pleasure, but also can lead to physiological addiction.
- Most of the sources utilized were under representative of diverse demographics, specifically gender, which was focused on females. Additional research should try to represent the male population in order to get rid of bias. A more significant limitation is the lack of previous knowledge to back up claims made currently. Social media outlets and their effects on the brain and/or person are a new discovery in the medical and psychological world, thus making it a fresh topic of research.
Emotional Evaluations
-Self-esteem is defined as the attitude toward the self and can be positive or negative (Clay, Vignoles & Dittmar, 2005).
- The social comparison theory states that individuals establish their self-perspective based off their comparison with images distributed by the media. This theory has been used to explain how media influences adolescents’ view of themselves and others (Gallagher, 2017).
-Self-esteem and body satisfaction are linked to social comparison and trying to achieve the impossible of being perfect (Gallagher, 2017).
- In a study of girls aged 11 to 16, seeing underweight and even average body types lowered their self-esteem. The study also found that the older girls’ self-esteem was lower than the younger girls (Clay, Vignoles & Dittmar, 2005).
-All of these effects can have detrimental effects like eating disorders or a strain on relationships.
https://www.freepik.com/free-vector/hand-drawn-social-media-icons_1256558.htm
(Gallagher, 2017)