For the purposes of this article, let’s start by clarifying a very basic definition of what we mean by “sense of self” and “social media.” Your self-perception is how you It is the identity you try to cultivate in your everyday life, for some people it is driven by their emotions, thoughts and knowledge.
For others, it is determined by their role in society, their job, whether they are parents or not, etc. Sometimes it comes down to our self-esteem, how we view ourselves, and how we think others view us. This last part is particularly relevant when considering how we present ourselves on social media.
Social media platforms are websites and applications that allow people to communicate and share information using the Internet, usually on a mobile phone, tablet or computer. Registration usually involves entering personal information and an avatar of yourself to create a “profile”, “bio” or “account”.
This is where you start building your self-esteem online. Social media profiles can be private, public, or mixed, depending on the platform. Some well-known platforms are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram (owned by Facebook), LinkedIn and Tumblr. Reddit could also be described as social media, but it is more of a forum. Thus, the definition of the term crosses over to some extent.
Does any of this sound familiar to you?
You wake up, unlock your phone and start your day.If you haven’t, consider yourself lucky, this minor gesture reflects a much bigger problem.Some of us may open an app such as Medito, Headspace, or Calm to meditate before starting the day. However, it can be very easy to fall back asleep if you try this, speaking from experience. Others may prefer to read the news, no matter how depressing (politics, fires in the Amazon). The worst thing to do is to open social networks.
Ten minutes later and you’ve read more useless information than necessary, you haven’t learned anything, you start scrolling through pictures of people you don’t know. Why can’t I get my hair like this? Positive statements about others can very quickly turn into negative questions about ourselves.
Thirty minutes passed and you watched a video on how to live your best life, in bed, half an hour after you had to get out. You tell yourself this is how you’re going to live, that today is the day you’re going to change your life, you scroll a little further and see something you don’t agree with.
You leave a comment, a stranger replies, you reply to the stranger, he replies, another stranger replies and before you know it you’re an hour away in the most pointless debate ever. You switch apps, more pictures, accounts with nothing but filtered selfies, beautiful kids and expensive vacations. You look in your room. You finally get out of bed, feeling worse than when you woke up, your phone in your hand.
Time spent on social media (TSSM)
What happened? What’s the point of a one hour sink? Why is it so common that time spent on social media affects us so negatively? In 2017, a study on this topic was published.
These associations, with an increase in TSSM, “remained strong after controlling for total social media usage time.” It should be mentioned that this was the case for people using more than two social media platforms.
None of this is new, social media has been around for years (Six Degrees in 1997 is widely regarded as the first social media platform) and it is surprising that although there is so much research on this subject, we speak about it so rarely. There are people with mental illnesses or disorders whose symptoms could be alleviated simply by spending less time on social media.
Of course, this is not the case for all forms of mental illness or disorder, but for those of you who have noticed a significant or gradual decline in your well-being, it might be worth investigating. .
Ostensibly, Facebook provides an invaluable resource for meeting such needs by allowing people to connect instantly. Rather than improving well-being, as frequent interactions with supportive “offline” social networks do, the current findings demonstrate that interacting with Facebook can predict the opposite outcome for young adults – it may undermine. »
Sometimes that notification isn’t even for you, it’s an update, a suggestion, something about someone you know and even in the case of Facebook groups, posts from people you don’t know . Yet we still click on it because it’s designed that way. We’re all sheep, herded in through clever design, anticipating the dopamine hit we’ll get once we click. Well-being directly affects our self-esteem and dopamine plays a huge role in this.