Emily Walsh: How Social Media Addiction Can Strain Our Relationships

Social media has advanced so much in the past decade in our society and has become an integrated part of everyday life for people. But this has made it much easier for people to become addicted to the internet. By becoming addicted to the internet it can bring out many bad effects. Being surrounded by images and advertisements through social media it can provoke feelings of intense materialism and self-esteem issues. Because the majority of teens are on social media today these materialistic values and self-esteem issues resonate with them more. Although I acknowledge that social media can have its positives I feel as though the negatives outway those positives. The negative effects that social media can cause show how it should warrant a deeper look into these negatives more than the positives. Through the research that I have done I have decided that social media is more harmful to our relationships than helpful.

Addiction to social media is very prevalent in our society and is hurting our relationships outside of the internet. The research was done by Edison Research: Triton Digital(2017), found that the amount of people in the U.S. using social media has risen from 24% of the population in 2008 to 81% in 2017. This research shows just how relevant social media is to our society and how big of an impact it has on humanity. Even more interesting Gwenn Schurgin O’Keeffe and Kathleen Clarke-Pearson(2011) found that 22% of teens admitted to logging into their social media accounts more than 10 times a day. The role that social media plays in a teen’s life is huge. This connects with research done by Pew Research Center which shows that 24% of teens are online “almost constantly”. These pieces of research show just how prevalent social media addiction is in our society today and how important it is to a young teen today to make sure their image online is likable.

Teens today are becoming more obsessed with their online image than what is going on in their real lives. This is shown through teens becoming more materialistic because of the standards that are on social media. Materialism according to the researcher Stella Chia could have positives but the negatives are there and affect teens. “Nevertheless, for children or adolescents, who are at the formative stage in terms of developing identity and values (Cramer, 2001; Goldberg et al., 2003), materialism is a problem because it is often viewed as an emerging value centering on acquisitiveness—which is close to terminal materialism.”This is shown through the research done by Stella Chia. In her research she found that teens who were online more and had more exposure to advertisements online were more likely to become materialistic. The researcher says that advertising could be a big influence on teens materialistic values, “Advertising often portrays material possessions as important objectives or ultimate goals of people’s lives. It vigorously associates desirable life qualities—such as happiness and success—with material possessions.” By being on social media constantly as most teenagers are there is a more likely chance for teenagers to take on the materialistic values that are promoted through advertisements on social media and online. The researcher said, “First adolescents’ exposure to advertising remained directly associated with adolescents’ materialistic values…”

Teens are also seen to becoming more self-conscious because of long exposure to social media and being online. By being online and being exposed to advertisements online teens and young adults are having an unrealistic perception what is normal in society. Therefore, teens think that because they don’t fit into these confines of what is normal than they should be self-conscious of who they are.  Researches Kim and Lennon talk about the effects of  a low self-esteem, “…whereas low self-esteem is associated with risky health behaviors and social problems such as depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and suicidal tendencies (Mann et al., 2004).”Researchers Kim and Lennon found a correlation with being over exposed to advertisements. “Therefore, it is reasonable to expect that exposure to thin-ideal images portrayed in mass media will be associated with  negative body attitudes (such as poor body image) and low self-esteem.”  Therefore by being on social media and constantly examining these advertisements that are being thrown at you through social media, you can see how you can become less confident in yourself and ultimately become self-conscious of who you are.

Through my own experience I have experienced these thoughts of not feeling confident in myself and feeling as though I need to put material objects before the feelings of others. I can ultimately assume that these feelings were caused by my exposure to social media because of the research I have conducted. I feel as though overall social media is doing more harm than good to our own selves and to our relationships outside of social media. Social media can definitely have positive effects but it can also become a danger to ourselves. I think that social media is hurting our relationships more than it is doing good.