Self-Image Through Social Media
Have you ever wanted to post short videos or pictures of your day? Or send funny faces to your friends? Now you can with the help of the application Snapchat. This application is the newest trend that everyone wants to try. Snapchat is easy to use and you can stay connected with just a tap. Snapchat has given people more ways to express themselves, but it comes at a high price. The application creates an illusion that we can live a perfect life when in reality that is not true. Sherry Turkle in her article “Flight of conversation” explains how people are alone together: even though we have plenty of people around to talk to us we still feel detached. The upside to using Snapchat is that we can see what our friends are up to from time to time. Although Snapchat allows us to stay connected with our friends,
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The appreciation that they receive form others has made them more confident. In the article “Why Your Kids Love Snapchat, and Why You Should Let Them” by Rachel Simmons, it states that there is very little audience participation. In particular, there is no “like” or “heart’’ button which means that there is no way for others judge and measure our value. There was also a study that was conducted about how Snapchat may have a correlation with self-esteem. This experiment was conducted by a biological social linguistic psychologist Fem I. Nine at the University of Pennsylvania. Nine found that there were strong connections between the application Snapchat and teens self-esteem. They had over three hundred participants from middle schools, high schools, and colleges. One particular participate went into a deeper response and said, “I really feel like each one is a piece of art…that lasts for 6 seconds.” This statement implies that teens feel good about themselves when they post on Snapchat because they have taken the time to perfect the picture that they are going to
I feel as though more and more teens of this generation are using social media in order to seek approval of attention of others. Since they are expected to use social media in a way to create an online audience, they post pictures of themselves and activities so that they can get a “yes” or “no” response from their audience. If someone posts a picture online and someone who is considered a “friend” makes a positive comment on the photo, then they have received approval of their actions. If someone makes a negative remark on the photo, then they have received disapproval. She uses various examples of how young adults use social media to create a persona of themselves, such as when girls post sexualized pictures of themselves and create avatars of themselves (Orenstein, 448). This means that how they are seen online will affect how they act in real life. When Orenstein says that “the self, becomes a brand”, she means that young adults have to act in a way that is perceived to be socially acceptable by their peers, and the image of how everyone sees you. So many people today use social media, and the biggest one that is being used is Facebook. Profile pictures, albums, and statuses are things that gets posted up for anyone to comment, like, or dislike. Your “friends” on
Turkle discovered, “You can put your attention wherever you want to be,” is something college students believe in.(Turkle) Being able to observe this as a mother gives a sense of sadness. Instead of young adults enjoying their time together and hanging out, they can be seen engrossed with their phones while being together in the same room. A new sense of togetherness has also emerged, where people do not need to be near their friends to be hanging out. College students can live vicariously through their friends’ Snapchat stories and texting is the best way to communicate with each
Technology has advanced a lot and has been greatly impacting our lives since the Industrial Revolution. The appearance of the mobile phone, the computer, and the tablets have all changed our ability to communicate with people around the world. Although technologies have greatly improved our lifestyle, they have brought many negative effects on our relationships and happiness as well, for instance distorting people's views on one another and bringing more loneliness to people's lives. Many people believe that benefited by social media platforms such as Facebook, it is now not necessary to talk to someone in person in order to effectively communicate with one and know one’s life. Others, however, believe that technology alone cannot replace
While Economist had predicted that Snapchat would become a technology giant such as Facebook did. To date roughly 180 million people use the Snapchat app on an average of 18 times per day, with over 60 percent sending multiple snaps every day. But to no surprise the participants are aged 18-25 years old. Social apps in many ways could be a weird business, because it has no apparent value.
People find that using social media is enjoyable, even pleasurable. Students at Harvard looked in to this claim: "Through a series of experiments, the researchers at Harvard University learned through the study that the act of disclosing information about oneself activates the same part of the brain that is associated with the sensation of pleasure, the same pleasure that we get from eating food, getting money or even having sex"(site2). In other words many find it pleasurable to post things about themselves and discover new things about those they know or admire, to a point where using social media each day becomes an addiction. The majority of the social media audience is teens or children from ages 7 to 21. Older people also post status, however not as frequent as the younger generation.
Self- Efficacy as defined in "Teens’ Social Media Use and Collective Action”, is one’s ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task. Self-Efficacy plays a role in how one approaches goals, tasks, and challenges (ix). Collective self-esteem, is “an individual’s self-concept derived from his/her ‘knowledge of membership’ in a social group together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Seo et al. 885). Self-Esteem is an important psychological human need. These are internal factors that affect how people view their external factors, and can affect how people modify their personal behaviors (Nio,
“Nothing is perfect.” Though social media brings us uncountable convenience, there is a trade-off with the convenience. Due to the advanced technology we have, social media has become part of our life, which it means that social media could determine our sociability. In Peggy Orenstein’s “I Tweet, Therefore I Am,” though she praises Tweeter for its convenience, at the same time, she also worries that “(Tweeter) makes the greasepaint permanent, blurring the lines not only between public and private but also between the authentic and contrived self.” Since we don’t care about who we talk to, we might act abnormally due to our feelings, and
People have the fundamental desire to maintain strong connections with others. Through logic and reasoning, Sherry states, “But what do we have, now that we have what we say we want, now that we have what technology makes easy?”(Turkle). Face to face conversations are now mundane because of the accessibility to interact at our fingertips, at free will through text, phone calls and social media. Belonging, the very essence of a relationship has now become trivial.
The ultimate question that comes to the mind of mjourity of youth is WHATS the point when it comes to being able to express your self in real lifewbecause they have already depicted them selkves as the ideal person they want to be and think very highly oifi them selevs. Hence, social media acts as a fuel to the ego of young people where they ideally think it is okay tik show them sleves as perfect online instead of real life. Young people adapt to the speech used in various forms of social media
Social interaction has changed through generations. There was a time where if you wanted to contact someone, you had to mount your horse and sometimes ride hundreds of miles. Then came the invention of the postal service, delivering messages in a more efficient way, but sometimes taking weeks to arrive to the recipient. Later came the telegraph, and eventually the landline telephone. As distant communication has been on the rise, people have been having an increasing reliance on social interaction. The smartphone made this a horrifying reality. Since the invention of the smartphone, we feel inclined to constantly be in touch with someone or something. The connection feeds our hunger for attention. In Gabby Bess’ collection, Alone With Other
This study examines social media among college students and how it affects self-concept and communication with peers. It explains the importance of the effects social media has on personal communication and self-esteem. It emphasizes that social media offer straightforward ways to communicate with peers and get immediate peer feedback, which might influence young adult’s self-esteem. This article connects the idea self to the overarching theme of relationships.
Self-esteem and Social Media Social media has taken over the world of communication and has changed the ways in which we communicate on a daily basis. It is extremely influential in our lives because of how easily we are able to access these mediums of communication. I’m intrigued by the effects that social media has on people’s perceptions of their self-worth. Almost all of the social networking sites seem to measure, at least to some extent, the popularity level or status of its users.
Self- Efficacy as defined in "Teens’ Social Media Use and Collective Action”, is one’s ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task. Self-Efficacy plays a role in how one approaches goals, tasks, and challenges (ix). Collective self-esteem, is “an individual’s self-concept derived from his/her ‘knowledge of membership’ in a social group together with the value and emotional significance attached to that membership” (Seo et al. 885). Self-Esteem is an important psychological need of human beings. These are internal factors that affect how people view their external factors, and can affect how people modify their personal behaviors (Nio,
Some may argue that technology helps us not feel lonely because technology is the way to escape reality for a bit and the internet can reconnect with our friends and family from around the world. We can save time by “shopping” online and communicate quickly by “email than postal mail” (Franzen 428). We can also communicate via webcam, especially for college students away from their family. It’s a way to reconnect with our love ones and stay in contact with our friends. We want to be “able to share our lives with others” and technology “allows us to do that with music, videos, pictures, and texts” (Arnett 477-479).
In the article “The Flight from Conversation” which describes the effects of technology on human interactions, Sherry Turkle argues, “WE live in a technological universe in which we are always communicating. And yet we have sacrificed conversation for mere connection”. Many others would agree with Turkle; technology and its advances through new devices and social media takes away face-to-face conversation. Her idea of being “alone together” in this world is evidently true as many people can connect with one another through technology, altering relationships to adjust to their own lives. Despite Turkle’s opposition, I believe that technology makes our lives easier to manage. There are numerous forms of social media platforms and handheld devices