The Impact of Social Media

“Disappear” was written about the impact of social media on both interpersonal relationships and an individual’s perception of self. The content below will discuss both the positive and negative sides of social media while the song mainly focused on the lived experience of engaging with social media and the way it can change relationships (personal and interpersonal). As you can imagine, there is a bit of research about the impact of social media in both positive and negative directions.

Social Media began to emerge in the 1980’s as internet chat rooms developed and the first recognizable social media site, Six Degrees, was created in 1997 (Hendricks, 2013). Blogging began shortly after in 1999 which then led to many social media sites springing up in the following years including MySpace, LinkedIn, Flickr, and Youtube all before 2006. Facebook and Twitter started in 2006 (Hendricks, 2013).

What?! It’s already been 13 years?? I know, I couldn’t believe it.

As social media sites amplified in popularity, more and more people began to engage with one another electronically than ever before. People also began to use social media as a major platform for news, political engagement, business promotion, networking, and creating new social connections. Social media allowed businesses to engage with customers in a new way allowing an avenue of co-creation where consumers could have active participation in the development of new products and ideas (Piller, Vossen, & Ihl, 2012). Customers also had a platform to share their opinions on company values and products with other consumers which caused companies to be more responsive to the consumer to avoid losing profit to another company with better reviews (Piller, Vossen, & Ihl, 2012).

Along with corporate benefits, social media created a new way of developing social capital and increasing civic engagement (Gil de Zuniga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012). Social capital describes the resources that an individual holds within their network or community and the ability to access those resources and connections (Gil de Zuniga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012). Social media acts as a mechanism for individuals to mobilize their “social capital” for a purpose or connection such as a political rally or a networking event (Gil de Zuniga, Jung, & Valenzuela, 2012). This use of social media gives individuals a positive and productive way to connect with other people and to organize around areas of interest in a timely and efficient manner. In numerous studies, people reported that social media also gave them an avenue to connect to other people which decreased their loneliness and depression and significantly increased their perceived social support and self-esteem. It also gave those with negative in-person interactions an avenue for a different form of gratification (Barker, 2009; Shaw & Gant, 2004).

What’s the big deal, then? Right? Unfortunately, social media research reveals another side

to the story as well.

Along with the positive aspects of social media comes a range of negative reports regarding the effects of social media. Adolescents and young adults have developed frequent social media use as a normal part of their day to day activities. While this can have many positive implications for adolescents like the ones described above, there are also a multitude of negative possibilities. Social media provides a platform for individuals to experience cyber-bullying and harassment and can cause increased levels of depression. This depression can come from a heightened use of sites such as Facebook and Twitter due to feelings of rejection (O’Keefe, Clarke-Pearson, Council on Communications and Media, 2011). Adolescents may also use social media platforms to learn new things about drugs, sex, and violence from un-reliable sources (O’Keefe, Clarke-Pearson, Council on Communications and Media, 2011). Users of all ages have reported increased levels of loneliness and depression when engaging heavily with this kind of content on social media, especially when it is not in relation to connecting to another person (Burke, Marlow, & Lento, 2010).

Studies have shown that Facebook can have a negative impact on an individual’s mental health “including depressive symptoms, anxiety, body dissatisfaction, self-esteem, and self-rated physical attractiveness” (Sherlock, & Wagstaff, 2018, para. 8). More recently, the impact of Instagram has been studied regarding its effects on psychological well-being. Studies have revealed that Instagram can impact individuals’ depressive symptoms, anxiety, self-esteem, and cause body image disturbance (Sherlock, & Wagstaff, 2018). Researchers observed that these negative results are primarily caused by Instagram’s platform which leads many individuals into social comparison behavior (Sherlock, & Wagstaff, 2018).

Research continues to be explored in the context of social media as it is ever-changing and evolving in our modern world. There appear to be both positive and negative implications of social media in individuals’ lives and it does not look like it is going anywhere soon.

Mostly, I wanted to dive deeper into this topic as it is something we all are impacted by daily and it can do both harm and good in our lives. Fortunately, it can connect us in ways that have never been possible before but it can also drive us away from one another and from ourselves. I hope this will at least make you stop and think for a minute about how social media impacts the world if it does nothing else. I hope it could also cause you to take a step back and examine how social media could be playing a positive or negative role in your life. This may sound cheesy (if you know me I can be a real sentimental person), but please remember that you are pretty darn cool regardless of what the “likes” or “comments” say in the virtual world and how “cool” everyone else appears. We are all in this new age of media together and, according to the research, there are a lot of ways that social media is impacting us all.

References

Barker, V. (2009). Older adolescents’ motivations for social network site use: The influence of gender group identity, and collective self-esteem. CyberPsychology & Behavior 12(2).

Burke, M., Marlow, C., & Lento, T. (2010, April). Social network activity and social well-being presented at the Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Atlanta, GA.

Gil de Zuniga, H., Jung, N., & Valenzuela, S. (2012). Social media use for news and individual’s social capital, civic engagement and political participation. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 17(3).

Hendricks, D. (2013). Complete history of social media: Then and now. Retrieved from: https://smallbiztrends.com/2013/05/the-complete-history-of-social-media-infographic.html.

O’Keefe, G., Clarke-Pearson, K., Council on Communications and Media (2011). The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. American Academy of Pediatrics Clinical Report, 127(4).

Piller, F., Vossen, A., & Ihl, C. (2012). From social media to social product development: The impact of social media on co-creation of innovation. Die Unternehmung, 65(1).

Shaw, L. & Gant, L. (2004). In defense of the internet: The relationship between internet communication and depression, loneliness, self-esteem, and perceived social support. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 5(2).

Sherlock, M., & Wagstaff, D. L. (2018). Exploring the relationship between frequency of Instagram use, exposure to idealized images, and psychological well-being in women. Psychology of Popular Media Culture. Advance online publication.