Fortnight ago, I was compelled by my inner voice to write about another hitch of Facebook – a person’s confidence can be ruined that shoots themselves in their foot. Hypothetically, social networking sites in the mainstream of Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ etc should be best way for people with low self esteem to mingle and network easily. Coy natured people can say bye to uncomfortable silences, face-to-face conversation or weird gesture that was possibly a cause for their submissiveness.
It struck my mind when I stumbled across many news feeds and research carried out on how Facebook may hurt the users’ self-esteem to a great extent since it has become an obsession amongst us. Most of us, to that matter even I felt that the concept of Facebook is really amazing to socially connect people from every corner of the world to reinforce their bond and also make new acquaintances in just one click away. Ideally, this concept of social networking may sound in vogue in this technology-savvy world. However, it seems to be unfavorable to one’s self-confidence.
As the craze of social networking is taking the world by storm, more and more of social dilemmas are surfacing such as Facebook jealousy, Facebook depression, Facebook obsession, and the list goes on and on. Looks like obsessive Facebook users are headed up for various behavioral health-related disorders. So why does it have a quashing effect instead of the affirmative benefits to building relationship?
According to one research that I came across that people on Facebook tend to sensationalize their lifestyles, feelings, and moments of life especially when everything about their life seems so ideal and more enjoyable than others. Obviously, not many would consider portraying their lives if it isn’t fancy, colorful, and something to shout about. Therefore for obsessive users who spent most of their time on Facebook, they were more likely comparing their lives with their peers or relatives wishing they had better lives than they actually did. Can you judge other person’s life if theirs was happier than ours based on their profile? I don’t think so. But this is what happens eventually. 
Obviously, when more of enjoyable lives being shared and postings of unpleasant lives unshared tends to be the root cause of low self-esteem. People with low self-esteem are more likely to friend strangers and acquaintances that you hardly talk to, just to constantly yearn for their lives be like one. A simple example is when someone posts like “Had overwhelming weekends with Kardashian and Kanye West” or perhaps uploading tones of photos with you on vacation abroad, partying or simply anything. I don’t mean to say you can’t post pictures; yes you can but are more sensible rather than just creating a dramatic life. I would say it’s plainly seeking for attention.
Personally, as a user that have walk through the different phases of Facebook age and today I am proud to say I have overcome the ‘growing pains’ of it by holding on to the quintessence of social networking site. The fad is fading out slowly. I began to look at social site as means to re-connect myself to friends that far away, too busy to meet up, or merely to share information and spread awareness on important issues (I mean serious ones and not trivial stuffs etc). Perhaps my maturity is at its pinnacle.
It does make a lot of sense to me. I don’t know if it does to you.
The more friends you have on your site, the larger the possibility of users to have lower self esteem of themselves according to research carried out. This is simply because people tend to compare with their friends life by looking at their profile or pictures of themselves having a cheerful life going out and about and how great their life can be. Looking at all these, it elucidates the fact mentioned in an article that the amount of time spent on social site is in relation to the depression symptoms.
So, Facebook may not be a great idea for those with low self-esteem after all.
No comments:
Post a Comment