Self-esteem can be defined as the attitude and confidence a person has towards its own self to achieve a goal; self-respect. Studies show that children who exhibit self-esteem issues spend an excessive time on social media and this restricts them from exploring the real world. Spending excessive time on social media impacts how a person perceives him/herself. People create idealised online personas.

Advertising have long been criticised for portraying unrealistic and impossible standards of success and beauty. Nowadays, these unrealistic standards are not depicted through models or celebrities but through friends and classmates. Social media is designed to showcase the highlights in people’s lives. It created the possibility of a person to curate their life and post desirable and amazing moments, to elicit envy from others. Self-esteem is also influenced by comparing the number of likes or followers a person has compared to others.

People have the possibility to conceal their real life struggles of day to day life. There is evidence that these images are causing distress for younger people, because they start doubting their own life and compare it to other’s lives, according to what they see online.

For people who are experiencing anxiety or depression, they mask their struggles through carefully editing their feeds. This makes it harder for parents or friends to realise that they need help.

“It’s important to remember that just posting edited pictures online or pretending your life is a little more glamorous than it is is not in itself a problem,” says Jill Emanuele, PhD, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute. “Social media alone is unlikely to be at the heart of the issue, but it can make a difficult situation even harder.”

https://childmind.org/article/social-media-and-self-doubt/

According to a study, girls were more likely to have low self-esteem (12.8 percent vs. 8.9 percent for boys), to have body weight dissatisfaction (78.2 percent vs. 68.3 percent) and to be unhappy with their appearance (15.4 percent vs. 11.8 percent) (DeseretNews, 2019)

There is a gap between who people truly are in real life and who they pretend to be online. This gap may lead to frustration and depression. If you feel as though your self-esteem is impacted after scrolling through social media, limit your social media consumption and avoid making comparisons. Remember social media is only a highlight reel, it does not give the bigger picture and everything is edited.

What is Dopamine? According to Psychology Today, dopamine is a neurotransmitter, one of those chemicals that is responsible for transmitting signals between the nerve cells of the brain, also called neurons. It has a key role in motivating and reward driven behaviours. It gets released when we take a bite of delicious food, when we have sex, after we exercise, and, importantly, when we have successful social interactions. Dopamine rewards us for beneficial behaviours and motivates us to repeat them.

In an unprecedented attack of candour, Sean Parker, the 38-year-old founding president of Facebook, recently admitted that the social network was founded not to unite us, but to distract us. “The thought process was: ‘How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?’” To achieve this goal, Facebook’s architects exploited a “vulnerability in human psychology”, explained Parker, who resigned from the company in 2005. Whenever someone likes or comments on a post or photograph, he said, “we… give you a little dopamine hit”. Facebook is an empire of empires, then, built upon a molecule.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/04/has-dopamine-got-us-hooked-on-tech-facebook-apps-addiction

How is dopamine connected to social media? Well, firstly, it gives social media users a false sense of fulfilment. Users tend to enjoy the anticipation of new notifications; you never know when or who the notifications will be from, which makes it all the more exciting.

It’s easy to get into a dopamine induced loop. Dopamine starts you seeking, then you get rewarded for the seeking which makes you seek more. It becomes harder and harder to stop looking at email, stop texting or stop checking your phone to see if you have a new notification.

https://medium.com/@Reece_Robertson/why-youre-addicted-to-social-media-dopamine-technology-inequality-c2cca07ed3ee

Social media is taking advantage of our social impulses and anxieties, including our fear of missing out (FOMO) and the impression that we need to reciprocate when we feel someone has done something for us.

Last week, Rimmel published a video advertisement that spoke to many women all around the world. For Anti-Bullying Week, Rimmel teamed up with anti-cyberbullying charity Cybersmile Foundation, which deals with women’s experiences of online abuse.

The brand’s #IWILLNOTBEDELETED campaign is based on its own research, which saw it speak to over 11,000 women aged 16-25. The survey found that one in four women have previously experienced beauty cyberbullying, while 115 million images on social media are deleted each year as a result. No doubt, beauty cyberbullying can affect thousands of individuals’ mental health.

“This desire to conform to defined standards of beauty means it is already hard for women to break out and express their identity with their personal style and look. Beauty cyberbullying only makes the issue worse, creating another barrier for women to overcome on the very platforms that are intended to liberate and celebrate creative individuality.”

Rimmel

Cyberbullying only very rarely occurs independently of other forms of bullying, but being bullied online can be a different experience and can have different impacts. Perceived distance and anonymity can mean that online bullying can be more pervasive, intrusive and persistent. There is continuous evidence on effect on mental health due to cyberbullying.

NICHD research studies show that anyone involved with bullying are at increased risk for depression, including the ones who do the bullying themselves. Moreover, studies have shown that cyber victims were at higher risk for depression than were cyberbullies or bully-victims.

We must be aware of the consequences and how other people can be affected by our choice of words.

Be a part of the solution, not the problem. Never forward or share emails, photos, links, etc. which contain information that might cast a negative image of someone/something else. Don’t continue the negative dynamics public (by continuing an argument through email or texts, or retaliating). Don’t make the negative issues public (such as posting a negative message on a public website). 

https://www.phoenix-society.org/resources/entry/cyber-bullying

Social media addiction is used to refer to someone who uses social media compulsively. It becomes problematic when it starts interfering with mental health, wellbeing and other aspects of daily life.

Social media use can become a harmful habit if not controlled, addicts may become compelled to constantly check their profiles, update their status, stalk other people for a prolonged time and rely too much on the number of likes they receive.

Chicago University conducted an experimental study where they found that addiction to social media is stronger than cravings or addiction to cigarettes and alcohol.

Desires for media may be comparatively harder to resist because of their high availability and also because it feels like it does not ‘cost much’ to engage in these activities, even though one wants to resist — Hoffman

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/319011

Your phone is probably the first thing that you grab when you wake up, followed by mindlessly scrolling or updating your social media feeds on; facebook, instagram, snapchat etc.. When you post a picture you instinctively check for the number of likes or comments you received.
We love using Instagram and Facebook for the instant gratification we get when receiving praise and likes – Social media causes us to become addicted to attention.

It may seem rewarding when you disclose information about yourself on social media and get a good response, but you must be aware that this is more harmful than you may think. Excess time on social media may impact your sleep pattern, self-esteem, reduces physical activity, increases risk of anxiety and depression and imposes many other risks.

Productive things to do instead of scrolling through social media: read a book, go for walks, spend time with your loved ones, sleep earlier, travel, learn to play an instrument, learn to cook etc..

Less scrolling, more living. don’t get sucked in!

Cancel Culture: A modern internet phenomenon where a person is ejected from influence or fame by questionable actions. It is caused by a critical mass of people who are quick to judge and slow to question. It is commonly caused by an accusation, whether that accusation has merit or not..

We are living in a world where online shaming is the new norm. Cancel culture has become the ”acceptable form of cyberbullying”. It is a way to publicly shame and humiliate a person, and this can often be seen with celebrities; such as James Charles and Kanye West, among many others.

The backlash received from ‘cancelling’ causes serious affects on an individual, especially on their mental health. Cancelling is taking away an individual’s ability to be human and make mistakes. It leads up to people not wanting to help them get back on their feet and not allowing them to apologise and make up for their mistakes.

Younger generations, who are growing up with this technology and access to the internet, are being exposed to drama, negativity, and #cancelculture so much that they begin to believe it’s okay. They don’t question why it’s problematic, they don’t question what information is “reliable,” rather they choose to participate because it’s happening everywhere. 

https://www.erilm.com/the-toxic-repercussions-of-cancel-culture/

The James Charles and Tati Westbrook drama blew up everywhere on social media a few months ago, followed by incredible amounts of cancelling. There was a lot of negative and hateful comments directed to James Charles. He explains how this online harassment negatively affected his mental health in the video below..

Cancel culture gave the opportunity for people who did not know about James Charles and the situation, to make assumptions, bully him for the choices he made, and almost jeopardising his career completely. When really, all that needed to happen was a conversation between two friends, instead of posting everything online..

Cancel culture should be about having a larger discussion about what we as a society won’t tolerate. It shouldn’t mean the total destruction of a person’s career. A person should be allowed to make mistakes, and should be allowed a chance to make things right, not being shut down completely from the world.

Make social media a safer place – stop participating in cancel culture!