Approximately 94% of teenagers in most developed countries use at least one social media platform (AP-NORC, 2017). Basically, social media use is characterized by communication that is virtual, which includes posts and comments on pictures and other forms of media (Nesi et al., 2018). According to Wichstom & von Soest (2016), the perception of one’s appearance is a crucial component of oneself that significantly impacts teenagers' self-esteem globally. Therefore, visual communication on social media, including personal videos and pictures, is a crucial aspect of self-presentation (Chua & Chag, 2016). Mascheroni et al. (2015) note that social media raises the impact of physical appearance on teenagers' perception of self. Therefore, the way teenagers perceive themselves, especially physically, determines the level of their self-esteem.
While social media has been linked to positive effects such as therapeutic effects on users and negative effects such as depression and low self-esteem, research by Benjamin et al. (2015) identified no link between social media and users' moods. However, results from a study by (Steinbekk et al., 2021) indicated no correlation between use of social media and self-esteem for children between 10 and 12 years and no association for children between 12 and 14 years. In response to the mixed results, this research will be a cross-sectional study to evaluate the impacts of social media on teenagers between 12 and 19 years by using the SESS (Altmann & Roth, 2018). This study will apply a similar research strategy to the research by Steinbekk et al. (2021) that included evaluation of self-oriented usage of social media such as posting photos on social platforms, reacting to other individuals’ posts, and sharing own or others’ posts. This study hypothesizes comparable findings with research by (McLean et al., 2019) that reported a decline in self-esteem with prolonged social media use due to the detrimental effect on the development of appearance self-esteem.
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References
Altmann, T., & Roth, M. (2018). The Self-esteem Stability Scale (SESS) for Cross-Sectional Direct Assessment of Self-esteem Stability. Frontiers in Psychology , 9 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00091
AP-NORC. (2017). Instagram and Snapchat are the most popular social networks for teens: Black teens are most active on social media, messaging apps. https://apnorc.org/projects/instagram-and-snapchat-are-most-popular-social-networks-for-teens-black-teens-are-most-active-on-social-media-messaging-apps/
Banjanin, N., Banjanin, N., Dimitrijevic, I., & Pantic, I. (2015). Relationship between internet use and depression: Focus on physiological mood oscillations, social networking, and online addictive behavior. Computers in Human Behavior , 43 , 308–312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.11.013
Chua, T. H. H., & Chang, L. (2016). Follow me and like my beautiful selfies: Singapore teenage girls’ engagement in self-presentation and peer comparison on social media. Computers in Human Behavior , 55 , 190-197.
Mascheroni, G., Vincent, J., & Jimenez, E. (2015). “Girls are addicted to likes so they post semi-naked selfies”: Peer mediation, normativity and the construction of identity online. Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace , 9 (1), 5.
McLean, S. A., Jarman, H. K., & Rodgers, R. F. (2019). How do “selfies” impact adolescents' well-being and body confidence? A narrative review. Psychology research and behavior management , 12 , 513.
Nesi, J., Choukas-Bradley, S., & Prinstein, M. J. (2018). Transformation of adolescent peer relations in the social media context: Part 1—A theoretical framework and application to dyadic peer relationships. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review , 21 (3), 267-294.
Steinsbekk, S., Wichstrøm, L., Stenseng, F., Nesi, J., Hygen, B. W., & Skalická, V. (2021). The impact of social media uses on appearance self-esteem from childhood to adolescence – A 3-wave community study. Computers in Human Behavior , 114 , 106528. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2020.106528
Wichstrøm, L., & von Soest, T. (2016). Reciprocal relations between body satisfaction and self-esteem: A large 13-year prospective study of adolescents. Journal of Adolescence , 47 , 16-27.
