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Social media can negatively affect self image
Social media's effects on self esteem and image
Social media's effects on self esteem and image
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Where did the concept behind the Selfie begin? The idea of self-portraiture has been around for hundreds of years. Although the concept has been around as long as art itself has been around, self-portraits did not become a major component of art until the Renaissance. In fact, Jan van Eyck is considered to have produced the first true self-portrait in 1433. Why might this be important to the understanding of the Selfie? Although the Selfie’s rise to infamy did not begin until the creation of the front-facing camera by Apple, the concept of the Selfie began in the art world. Many may recognize the giants of the self-portrait, like Vincent van Gogh or Andy Warhol, but few may know the reasoning behind creating these expressions of self. Theses
Humans are drawn to the idea of instant gratification and the human image; Selfies are the perfect merger of both concepts. In the modern age of social media, many people are utilizing the Selfie to create their personal depiction of themselves for the world to see, or at least their followers. These followers could consist of family, actual friends, coworkers, or even strangers. Posing, filtering, and editing are all a form of self-promotion and self-presentation of a person in a socially desirable image. In the article “What does your selfie say about you?” researchers believe that unlike other forms of photography, the Selfies “do not reflect [a person’s] actual personality” (Qiu et al., 444). If a photo is a live capture of oneself, how is this possible? In the internet sphere of social media, people are able to display their desired attributes. Consequently, when people pick and choose which traits they do and do not want to be seen, they are hiding their true personality from their followers. This form of managing one’s personality in an image hindered the study in the aforementioned article. In this study, Qui and fellow researchers sought out to ascertain if personality cues are present and accurate in Selfies. Their results demonstrate that personality cannot be correctly analyzed in the same personality cues as a non-Selfie photograph or real
Though the Selfie in social media has been around since 2004, very little background has been developed in research of the Selfie (Barry et al., 2). In Qui’s study researchers seek to correlate the Selfie and the Big Five Personality: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness (445). As stated in the last paragraph, Qui’s research was not able to accurately link the personality traits to the Selfie. They did, however, make inferences on the findings within their research. Positive emotions portrayed in a Selfie are related to being extroverted, agreeable, and open; direct eye contact with the camera is also a depiction of agreeableness. Conscientiousness is positively correlated to public settings and positive emotions. Neuroticism has an association to the duckface (a pursing of the lips in an attempt to create a pouty look) and a lack of facial visibility in the photo (446-447). Nevertheless, these personality trait correlations are dealing with the viewer of the Selfie; which, is an excellent beginning into the research of Selfies, but more research is required for accurate analysis. The second study to be discussed is focused on the relation of Selfies to narcissism and self-esteem. Three types of narcissism were analyzed within research nonpathological, grandiose, and vulnerable. Nonpathological narcissism is overt
Although Rachel Simmons in “ Selfies Are Good for Girls” and Erin Ryan in “ Selfies Aren’t Empowering. They’re a Cry for Help”, both agree selfies can show accomplishments. However, Simmons believes selfies are a way for young women to boost their pride whereas Ryan defines them as a way to gain social approval confirmation. Simmons believes selfies are empowering, and increase self-confidence levels of young women. According to Simmons “selfie is a tiny pulse of girl pride - a shout-out to the self (P4)”. In other word, she believes self-portrait gives teenage girls an outlet to express pride within themselves. She explains how selfie not only express pride, it is also a way for young women to share their accomplishments, as shown in the
Murphy argues that people who take numerous amounts of selfies have the same attributes as psychopaths and narcissists however, that does not always mean that they are. They are just unaware if they do something that may go outside of social standards, especially if it's for a picture. Murphy reveals that selfie takers are insecure and are looking for validation from their peers; however their insecurities are masked over by their confidence. The higher number of likes they get, the more confident they feel. Murphy further states that more people are getting cosmetic surgery due to being discouraged when looking at their selfies but with all the applications that can be used to alter one’s features it isn't hard to feel that way. The apps can make your skin clear and teeth whiter it's hard to look in the mirror when you’ve seen a better version of yourself and it seems attainable. Selfie takers wouldn’t be insecure if they learn that
For centuries, humans have used their interaction with one another to help shape outsiders' perceptions of them. Often communication experts refer to this as constructing one’s “social identity.” For many years, this projection of self-came through interpersonal communication; face-to-face communication or other forms of personal interaction. In the progress of technology, this development of one’s personal attributes has come to include photographs, letters, published and unpublished writings, and physical attributes. Many aspects of a person’s “identity” as others see it are difficult and almost impossible to define. In the modern age, such vague characteristics are both helped and hindered by using social media and the internet to “construct”
An unfortunate development in the past few years is the social construct that the future generation is steadily becoming more selfish and vain. Likely originating from the countless “selfies,” or pictures of oneself, being taken by teenagers and young adults, adults of the last generation seem to be under the impression that the Millennials in line to take power will have more priorities meant to benefit the individual rather than the population as a whole. Thankfully, they are mistaken. Still, though, it is a problem that the line between self-confidence and narcissism has become so thin that we can no longer be one without the other. General impressions of the words have been passed down through the years, and unfortunately both have become so watered down that they seem basically the same. So what is the difference between confidence and narcissism?
In the article “#Me: Instagram Narcissism and the Scourge of the Selfie,” John Paul Titlow say’s that “Instagram is the breeding ground for many people’s most narcissistic tendencies.”(122). I disagree with this statement because Instagram is a very useful tool and allows people all over the world to communicate and seek places unknown to them.
As Grogan (1999) explains, one’s estimation of his or her appearance referred to as body image. Body dissatisfaction develops when negative judgments about one’s physical body contradict the ideal perception of the perfect body (Szymanski & Cash, 1995; Grogan, 1999). Having issues with body image and dissatisfaction during the most critical developmental period may place adolescents at a high risk of developing eating disorders. The effect of social media on body image and eating behaviors can be explained by a number of theories. The sociocultural theory, which is described by Thompson, Heinberg, & Tantleff-dunn (1999), can provide a structure to better understand the phenomenon of body dissatisfaction along with eating disorders. This theory
Firstly, what is exactly narcissism? The word ‘narcissism’ was derived from an ancient Greek myth of Narcissus. Narcissus was depicted as a handsome young man who adored his looks very much. Many young maidens fell in love with him but he criticizes them for being too ugly for him. One day, he fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. However, he accidentally drowned himself as he tried to touch his reflection. Hence, the word ‘narcissism’ is usually depicted as a personality that reflects excessive of self-love on oneself. Individuals who are narcissistic are usually described as somebody who is selfish, snobbish or proud. This is because narcissistic individual processes information obtained differently than others. They believe that they deserve more than others since they think they are more superior in every aspect. Due to their sense of grandiosity, they will do anything in order t...
The internet has been very instrumental in how society is engaging in many forms of social connections. Because of social network sites such as Facebook and Twitter, and video portals such as YouTube, the internet is among the most common activity of young people. Not only are children gaining access to other forms of communication, they can become devastated by it as well. Not all sites that children and adolescents have access to on the web are conducive to a healthy environment and therefore they become vulnerable to the perception of others. Because of a limited capacity to self-regulate and heightened susceptibility, children and adolescence allow social media to shape their image of self. The pressure of taking the right pictures, at the right place, at the right time, having hair and makeup flawless, with the right people, are pressures that individuals subject themselves to even more so in recent years. This occurrence is an application of
To begin, social media has created unrealistic standards for young people, especially females. Being bombarded by pictures of females wearing bikinis or minimal clothing that exemplifies their “perfect” bodies, squatting an unimaginable amount of weight at a gym while being gawked at by the opposite sex or of supermodels posing with some of life’s most desirable things has created a standard that many young people feel they need to live up to. If this standard isn’t reached, then it is assumed that they themselves are not living up to the norms or the “standards” and then therefore, they are not beautiful. The article Culture, Beauty and Therapeutic Alliance discusses the way in which females are bombarded with media messages star...
In particular, interest over whether people who use SNSs have higher levels of Narcissism than non-users of such sites. Two reasons have been discovered as to why people who use SNS may have higher levels of Narcissism than non-users. Firstly, Narcissism is strongly associated with forming relationships as an opportunity for self-enhancement (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008). Online communities, like Facebook and Twitter, encourage self-absorbed behaviour as they are built on superficial ‘friendships’ and often are used to maintain large numbers of relationships rather than deeper relationships. This allows Narcissists to maintain large numbers of shallow relationships, which constantly affirms their Narcissistic esteem (Buffardi & Campbell, 2008). Secondly, these sites offer a highly controlled environment, providing owners with complete power over self-presentation (Mehdizadeh, 2010). This provides an ideal setting for the owner to manage the impression they portray to others and create their “hoped-for possible selves” (Mehdizadeh, 2010). In particular, SNSs can be used to only share attractive photos of oneself or writing posts that are self-promoting, creating a biased impression of themselves (Ryan & Xenos,
Between Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even LinkedIn, social media is undoubtedly an outlet that engages most online users. However, according to mental health consultants nationally, social media has become an anxiety-provoking factor (Materna 2013). One of the things contributing to social media anxiety is when teens compare themselves to the doctored pictures of friends. Not only are their friends flawless in the photos, but they may be on an exotic vacation. And it seems to make their lazy weekend at home in their bedroom pale in
Selfie-Loathing: Here’s Why Instagram Is Even More Depressing than Facebook. Slate Magazine. Retrieved from http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2013/07/instagram_and_self_esteem_why_the_photo_sharing_network_is_even_more_depressing.html
Social media users see other people differently because much of the content posted on social media, which led to exalting users and revealing unnecessary information. When one first logs into a social media site such as Facebook, the first things that ...
The online photograph sharing, storytelling app has challenged the way people identify themselves. It has help raise the question of which identity is more important in today’s digital age? Self-identity is the “verbal conceptions we hold about ourselves and our emotional identification with these conceptions.” Social identity is the “expectations and opinions that others have of us.” (Kitzmann, Lecture 12) Instagram allows its users to post photographs of anything they choose, however at times these photos give people to challenge the idea of appearance versus reality. The use of photo editing apps is just an example of a way that users are able to fix the imperfections they see in order to make the picture “instagram worthy.” The appearance of the photograph is flawless when in reality it took several minutes (or hours) to take over fifty selfies and to edit the perfect one before it was considered for posting. This is how the app challenges hegemonic practices of beauty. In the fall of 2015, a model by the name of Essena O’Neil decided to quit instagram. For most people, they would assume that she deleted the app or deactivated her account; however she kept her account running only to re-caption her old pictures. O’Neil went back to her old posts and changed their captions, exposing all of
Several decades ago, communications philosopher Marshall McLuhan spoke about the development of the Global Village and how the evolution of new technologies would help connect people on opposite sides of the world, creating online communities that would break boundaries and borders. While this change has been recognized, so too has the idea explored by his successors in which while individuals were expected to look at others in the world through a telescope, they have alternatively developed the tendency to look at themselves through a microscope. As the era of worldwide connectivity began, so did the era of ‘me, me, me’. Both the hardware and the software of the new millennium, inclusive of the iPhone’s forward-facing camera, and apps that allow one to fix blemishes and whiten teeth, have adapted to allow this change to an inward focus. While this has certainly caught on, it has also begun to cause a lot of problems. The act of posting about the self began to be seen as a negatively self-centered one when Facebook NewsFeeds were filled with egotistic stories and ‘Selfies,’ photos of the self. Shortly after, the application Instagram was created, where the occurrence of the Selfie was magnified to a greater degree. This intensive focus inward, and the way these pieces of media are shared, have made some individuals reliant on the positive expressions of others for self-confidence and social approval. When self-esteem is intertwined with how many ‘likes’ a photo gets on a mobile application, we start to see a shift in how self-awareness is formed, what people will do for this approval, and how some will react to a lack of attention.