Self Esteem impacted from Social Media
In today’s society, everything one posts on social media is critiqued or judged and it affects how we end up feeling about ourselves. Whether you post a funny tweet on Twitter and it doesn’t get enough favorites you thought it deserved or posted a picture on Instagram that you thought was cute and it didn’t get enough likes; all of this can affect our self esteem. Social media plays such a large part in our generations lives now and there are many factors that cause our self esteem to go right down the drain.
One major factor that makes us compare to others are all the advertisements found on different social networking sites. Just about everything you do, an ad is always found or placed strategically to get your attention. Many celebrities incorporate ads into their social media, which we think is just apart of their daily routines. These posts are designed specifically to make us feel and think a certain way, meaning if we buy their product, we will look or feel just like the advertisement claims.
Social media has now formed into more of popularity contest. If you have more followers or likes then you seem cooler than those who have less than you. There is a sense of anxiety when you post a picture on Instagram because you never know how many likes you will get. On a personal standpoint, when I post a picture, I’m constantly checking how many likes I get to see how many I get and who specifically likes my picture. While I’m not one of those people who will delete a picture if it doesn’t get enough likes, in the back of my mind I’m wondering what made that picture so “unliked” and why someone else who posted the same type of picture got more likes than I did.
We try to always document how our lives look than actually live our lives in the moment. This ends up affecting our mental and physical health. Social media takes a toll on our lives and we are so use to it that most of the time we don’t realize how it affects our lives. It’s important to remember to love yourself, get enough sleep, and don’t listen to what other people think about you.
