It’s midnight and you’re still awake lying in bed. You’re scrolling through Instagram and stop on this one post that caught your eye. You immediately compare yourself: I wish I could look like that, you think quietly. Why can’t I just look like that? You keep scrolling and stop on many other posts. By now, you’re overthinking and suddenly become insecure about your appearance.
This is often a nightly occurrence for many teenagers nationwide and globally. It’s crazy to think that social media, something teenagers use everyday, could be making them feel down about themselves. It could be something as little as seeing someone else’s post to make them feel insecure or unstable about their self assurance.
According to the Department of Health and Services, children and adolescents who spend more than 3 hours a day on social media face double the risk of mental health problems including experiencing symptoms of depression and anxiety. This could certainly affect someone’s self esteem.
There are definitely pros and cons to using social media, and people can see it every day. Many young adults scroll through social media and stop on a post that sticks out to them. Immediately, they start comparing themselves. It’s human nature. Social media usage has a major impact on teenager’s self esteem.
According to an article from Australian Christian College, social media helps cultivate friendships and reduce loneliness, but excessive use negatively impacts self-esteem and life satisfaction. It’s also linked to an increase in mental health problems and suicide (though not yet conclusively).
Teens are constantly comparing ourselves to other people whether it’s for the good or bad. There’s always that sense of doubt if you’re good enough through your appearance. Eventually, that small sense of doubt can progress into an increasingly large amount of unstable feelings about oneself, which can lead to anxiety, stress, depression, and potentially suicide.
One of the many reasons teens post is to make them feel good. It could potentially enhance their self esteem by seeing other people’s reactions to their posts.
Many teens don’t even post regularly on their platforms. Many just don’t feel the need to. Some just like to scroll and look at other people’s posts to make them feel satisfied.
“It’s just not that interesting to me,” another student said from the poll. “I don’t really feel a need to let others know what I’m doing or keep up a facade that my life is perfect, like many do.”
Social media, without realization, makes a huge impact on our lives. Whether we believe it or not, people’s self esteem goes through a lot simply by just scrolling through Instagram or TikTok. We are constantly comparing and contemplating whether or not we really look like what we see in the mirror.
In the Knight Krier poll on social media & self esteem, the result concluded that 58 percent of students are mainly insecure about their facial features.
Although there may be negative impacts of social media, there are also positives as well. Most young adults compare themselves and search for the flaws. Yet others take it as inspiration to work on themselves or make themselves feel good about their appearance. Seeing other people living a good and healthy life could potentially make that person want to do the same. When someone receives a nice comment or like on their post, it obviously makes them feel good and satisfied about themselves.
“If I did post something I guess it would make me feel good, like I accomplished something,” one Norwin sophomore said.
Self esteem is a key component in ones’ life. One may say that if you don’t have strong self esteem, you are weak. In reality, it just takes time to get over the things in life that don’t mean anything. Teens sometimes take in the little things that don’t matter and make them a huge deal. Those times you will eventually learn from because your self esteem will eventually grow into confidence. One of the biggest obstacles in high school is not so compare yourself.
The main idea is that no one is perfect, so there is no point in comparing. Because everyone is their own unique person and expresses themselves differently in their own way. Social media definitely plays a huge part in self esteem and can make people overthink about their own life. Everyone sees each other differently. What you see in the mirror is not what others see.
