Effects of Social Media on Self-esteem
How does social media affect self-esteem?
Introduction
The research question seeks to find out the effects of social media on the self-esteem of people in the current generation. It has been revealed that social media has a great impact on the self-esteem of individuals, both adults, and youth. Social media contains various platforms that are currently trending, including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The current generation lives a life that is fully surrounded by social media and its impact on a large percentage of their daily lives. Social media has been tied to envy, loneliness, and depression among its users. People make updates concerning their flashy lives for their friends to see. However, cyberbullying has been noted to be all over the internet. As a result, some people have low self-esteem due to the bad comments on social media about them hence low self-esteem.
Statement of the problem
The effect of low self-esteem among people due to social media effects can affect anybody, despite their age, gender, or ethnic community. Once an individual signs up for social media, they should be ready to experience such type of feeling. This is because most of the content posted on the media platforms do not go through filtering, and no one has control over it. Actually, some people create fake accounts in media for the sake of cyberbullying in different cites without concern about the parties they are hurting. The effect can occur at any time in one’s life. Owing to the fact that there is no specific time for engaging in social media platforms. The only reason for inconsistency in social media by people is as a result of sleeping hours (Andreassen et al., 2017). The different time zones in the world are the cause of differentiation in logins done on social media platforms.
The more time people spend on social media, the more effects they get, which contributes to their low self-esteem. People on social media have proven to live a lie, especially celebrities. They show off portraying that they have made in life, which is not true. Their followers, who are mostly ordinary people, feel low when they see the type of experience they are leaving. They are left to compare the life they are living and wonder what they are not doing right. As a result, they start feeling bad about themselves, and the thoughts creep in, resulting in low self-esteem (Cramer et al., 2016). In addition, social media has set standards of a perfect person through the [pictures people post. For instance, for a lady, one has to have an ideal body shape, nice and expensive hair, and clothing with makeup too. Ladies who do not possess the above feel like they are not worth it and do not have the courage to post their photos.
Social media, too, describes a person by the number of friends they have. This is depicted by the number of comments and likes on their posts. Popular people, for this case, attract a number of followers hence more likes and comments (Woods & Scott, 2016). Less popular people instead attract fewer followers, and sometimes their pictures lack a single comment. As a result, they get thoughts that lead to low self-esteem; they end up not posting at all or quitting the media. The study of the research is important to psychology as it will help find out solutions that will reduce the impacts of social media on a lack of self-esteem to people. This will, in turn, reduce the number of people who need to be attended to by therapists on the issue of low self-esteem.
Hypothesis
The null hypothesis in this research is that social media does not result in more than 30% of low self-esteem cases reported over time.
The alternative hypothesis for the case is that social media results in more than 30% of low self-esteem cases reported over time.
Null hypothesis ho = p ≤ 30
Alternative hypothesis ha = p > 30
Statistical test
I will use a Friedman test to analyze whether to reject or accept the null hypothesis of the study. The test has majorly been used in research to test the hypothesis to determine the outcomes. The Fried man test is a method used to analyze data between two group variables to assess the effect of one to the other. In this case, the comparison is between social media and the impact it has on an individual’s self-esteem. The method assumes that the population for the study is randomly selected. For the case above, sampling should be done because it covers a larger percentage of people as everyone nowadays is on social media. I will have to select samples for my data randomly and conclude the data from averages of my findings. It also assumes that the samples should be normally distributed across the grid (MacFarland et al.,2016).
Basing on this research, I will ensure that the samples I select to use in the different techniques for data collection are normally distributed to ensure obtaining the accurate figures for the test. The test further assumes that one group is measure in a repeated number of occasions, given that it takes time to develop low self-esteem, the group selected will have to be analyzed a number of times. It will help establish the presence of low self-esteem and the reasons for the development of low self-esteem. It will, in turn, result in accepting or rejecting the null hypothesis hence finding solutions to the problem at hand. It also assumes that the dependent variable should be measured at a continuous level. For the above case, I will measure my dependent variable at a continuous level to fulfill the Friedman’s test.
Types of data and techniques for data collection
The type of data to be collected for the research involves figures of people suffering from low self-esteem, a portion of therapists who low self-esteem clients, and close relatives and friends of people suffering from low self-esteem. All of them have the information to tell where low self-esteem is as a result of social media. I will randomly select a number of people from the three groups to engage with and find out how deep the issue has affected them. From my sample, I will include popular people on social media as well as non-popular people. It will enable me to obtain data relevant to making a conclusion as the comparison will cover both people.
I will recommend the one soon one interview with the affected parties to identify the causes of their low self-esteem (Sutton, & Austin, 2015). I will draft questions specific for each group to analyze and come up with viable causes of low self-esteem. The advantage of using interviews is that they do not require any form of literacy or specific language, so their responses will not be restricted by any form. In the case of the language barrier, interpreters can be used to facilitate conversations. The use of questionnaires is another technique to obtain the data which participants feel comfortable about. The advantage of questionnaires is that they are confidential as participants are anonymous. It will entice them to provide actual and truthful data needed for the analysis of the research question.
It also ensures the availability of written data that can be referred to any time, just in case clarification is needed. It is suitable for this case given that data collected is from a large group so as to make comparisons’ will incorporate the use of focus groups to obtain data necessary for the analysis of the research question. Focus groups refer to the use of an oral interview that is conducted to a group of people who have undergone similar experiences (Sutton & Austin, 2015). In this case, my focus group will be people suffering from low self-esteem. The focus group will entice participants to feel free to share their ideas as they are all going through a similar situation. Although the focus groups might be time-consuming, they enhance brainstorming hence coming up with the actual data.
References
Andreassen, C. S., Pallesen, S., & Griffiths, M. D. (2017). The relationship between addictive use of social media, narcissism, and self-esteem: Findings from a large national survey. Addictive behaviors, 64, 287-293.
Cramer, E. M., Song, H., & Drent, A. M. (2016). Social comparison on Facebook: Motivation, affective consequences, self-esteem, and Facebook fatigue. Computers in Human Behavior, 64, 739-746.
MacFarland, T. W., & Yates, J. M. (2016). Friedman’s two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) by ranks. An Introduction to Nonparametric Statistics for the Biological Sciences Using R (pp. 213-247). Springer, Cham.
Sutton, J., & Austin, Z. (2015). Qualitative research: Data collection, analysis, and management. The Canadian journal of hospital pharmacy, 68(3), 226.
Woods, H. C., & Scott, H. (2016). # Sleepyteens: Social media use in adolescence is associated with poor sleep quality, anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Journal of adolescence, 51, 41-49.