Root Causes - Critical Lenses
Social media is heavily dependent on the number of followers or friends/other users you interact with on it. This can sometimes lead to an obsession with the number of followers you have on an account. Many users experience “feelings of anxiousness or regret” (Tokunaga 429) when they report their experiences with social media. Others attempt to “manage their Internet-based reputations” (Tokunaga 429), which can cause some tension when they delete unwanted posts, pictures, or comments. These negative events on social media can have countless different reactions, but they are most often not happy.
Self-absorbedness is another problem that is often found with adolescents in high school. It is easier to present an online presentation that is not realistic or true to the person. Instagram is filled with hyper-edited pictures and selfies that may not represent the person as their true self. Teenagers are the most likely to post things that gain a lot of feedback, whether it be an picture of themselves or a status on sites like Facebook or Instagram. As demonstrated in a study done by Maria Koutamanis, Helen Vossen, and Patti Valkenburg among Dutch adolescents, teenagers who used social media for “sensation seeking had a positive indirect effect on negative feedback” (Koutamanis, et al. 491). They also discovered that adolescents with “more family conflict were more likely to receive negative feedback through increased online social exploration” (Koutamanis, et al. 491) although they did not engage in any risky presentation online.
This leads in turn to the main question of how people use social media: for social exploration or to keep in contact with their family and friends. Another study by Erin Vogel, Jason Rose, Bradley Okdie, Katheryn Eckles, and Brittany Franz tackled this subject. They studied the effect of social comparison orientation towards social media use, specifically Facebook. They found that those who were higher in social comparison orientation were more likely to use Facebook than those who did not use social comparison orientation. This shows how social media usage can be negative, and can damage one’s self-esteem because of the dependency on Facebook to compare themselves to others (Vogel et al. 254). There is a clear correlation that those who heavily compare themselves to others have higher usage of social media. Social media is therefore damaging to one’s ego and could imply a need to constantly compare oneself to others.
Social media is heavily dependent on the number of followers or friends/other users you interact with on it. This can sometimes lead to an obsession with the number of followers you have on an account. Many users experience “feelings of anxiousness or regret” (Tokunaga 429) when they report their experiences with social media. Others attempt to “manage their Internet-based reputations” (Tokunaga 429), which can cause some tension when they delete unwanted posts, pictures, or comments. These negative events on social media can have countless different reactions, but they are most often not happy.
Self-absorbedness is another problem that is often found with adolescents in high school. It is easier to present an online presentation that is not realistic or true to the person. Instagram is filled with hyper-edited pictures and selfies that may not represent the person as their true self. Teenagers are the most likely to post things that gain a lot of feedback, whether it be an picture of themselves or a status on sites like Facebook or Instagram. As demonstrated in a study done by Maria Koutamanis, Helen Vossen, and Patti Valkenburg among Dutch adolescents, teenagers who used social media for “sensation seeking had a positive indirect effect on negative feedback” (Koutamanis, et al. 491). They also discovered that adolescents with “more family conflict were more likely to receive negative feedback through increased online social exploration” (Koutamanis, et al. 491) although they did not engage in any risky presentation online.
This leads in turn to the main question of how people use social media: for social exploration or to keep in contact with their family and friends. Another study by Erin Vogel, Jason Rose, Bradley Okdie, Katheryn Eckles, and Brittany Franz tackled this subject. They studied the effect of social comparison orientation towards social media use, specifically Facebook. They found that those who were higher in social comparison orientation were more likely to use Facebook than those who did not use social comparison orientation. This shows how social media usage can be negative, and can damage one’s self-esteem because of the dependency on Facebook to compare themselves to others (Vogel et al. 254). There is a clear correlation that those who heavily compare themselves to others have higher usage of social media. Social media is therefore damaging to one’s ego and could imply a need to constantly compare oneself to others.