Using Social Media to Gain Confidence
The analysis that we have done on networks, especially social networks rarely considers the emotions involved in interactions. We have talked about exchanges of money, but not of feelings. The truth of the matter is that there is a great deal of emotion involved in social networking and posting on social media.
This study discusses how many of today’s youth, especially teenagers, look to social media for confidence and fulfillment. This is very dangerous because, as we know, people in the social network have vastly varying levels of power and connectedness. Essentially, it can be detrimental to the human self-esteem to depend so heavily on social interactions for confidence. Neither powerful nor weakly located people in the social network will be satisfied with their likes, shares, and comments. This is the main reason why people embellish their stories online to make them more extravagant and more likely to receive a response. Powerful people in the network will get more responses, but they will probably include negative as well as positive messages. People with weaker standing in the network will receive fewer responses, but they may also be subject to ridicule.
This is one of the reasons that cyber bullying has become such an issue. People are willing to do whatever it takes to get a post seen online. This drives people to write terrible things about their peers. These responses may increase the “power” of the victim from our sense of the word because that person suddenly has a lot of profile views, messages, and comments, but that individual doesn’t feel very powerful at all.
I believe that this will continue to be an issue as long as someone else’s success is plastered all over our walls. In the person to person network, these successes are not so evident because you may never hear about them. On social media, the success (or infamous success) of someone is quickly brought to your attention. Until people in weak (or powerful) positions stop comparing their statuses to other people’s in order to gain confidence, this will continue to be a major problem.
http://www.dorsetecho.co.uk/news/13893902.Youths_turn_to_social_networking_to_boost_self_esteem/?ref=arc