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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The adolescent stage is marked by various changes. During this stage, teens tend to seek peer support as a way of compensating for the social, and psychological changes they experience. Thus, in recent years teenagers have turned to Facebook and other social networking sites to build and sustain their social relationships. Lai et al. (2019) assert that Facebook is one of the social networking sites that helps to build strong social ties. Additionally, it helps to mitigate loneliness, organize extracurricular activities, and improve social adjustments (Lai et al., 2019). However, the Facebook platform also negatively affects teenagers' socialization. Other negative effects of Facebook are diminished well-being, addiction to the site, and decreased academic performance.
Social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook are changing interpersonal relationships between teens. According to Errasti et al. (2017), teens are emotionally using social networks to comment on other people's pictures as well as express their emotions. Self-esteem, narcissism, and empathy influence how teens use these platforms. According to Errasti et al. (2017), self-esteem is an individual’s evaluation of oneself, which is based on the comparison of how one perceives himself and their values. These teen's values are acquired through the socialization process. Errasti et al. (2017) assert that the greater the distance between the ideal self and the real self, the lower the self-esteem. Twitter and Facebook have a great influence on teens' self-esteem because most uses of these networks involve continuous social comparisons, which affects self-evaluation and emotional state.
Every social networking site has its distinctive features. For example, Facebook allows teenagers to develop a personal wall where they post songs, photos, texts, as well as links to the internet pages. Then, the teen's friends display their likes to the items posted, share or comment on them (Errasti et al., 2017). Twitter, which is a microblogging network allows the exchange of short text between the teens. Tweets on this site are mainly related to the immediate events and news and tend to be replaced quickly. Thus, Facebook posts are durable and act as an area of contact between the teens and their friends (Errasti et al., 2017). Erastus et al.'s (2017) study led to the conclusion that teenagers who greatly use Twitter and Facebook tend to have a low self-esteem score compared to those who do not use social platforms. This study hypothesizes that there is a negative correlation between the frequency of Facebook and Twitter use and self-esteem.
Self-esteem is an outcome of a mechanism of comparison, which is based on a certain social context. Errasti et al. (2017) assert that Facebook and Twitter allow teens to establish the social comparisons numerically, based on the number of followers, friends, retweets, and likes. These platforms are the areas where teens share their milestones from their everyday functioning, which may encourage the people reading the postings to draw comparisons (McLean et al., 2019). According to McLean et al. (2019), the exposure of teens to the images of fashion models tends to develop a great tendency to compare oneself with others. Additionally, teens develop a negative attitude regarding their body images as well as hurt their self-esteem. Erastus et al.'s (2017) study led to the conclusion that teens who use Facebook and Twitter have a low score on the self-esteem scale compared to the teens who do not. McLean et al.'s (2019) study show that teens are affected by how their peers react to their posts. For instance, girls tend to change their looks and wear inappropriate clothes to seek likes and comments from their peers. Therefore, it is evident that teens' comments on social media negatively affect their peers' self-esteem.
Hypothesis: Teenagers who use social media have a lower level of self-esteem than those teenagers who do not use social media.
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/
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