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The Effects of Facebook on the Self Esteem of Teenage Girls Essay Example

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The Effects of Facebook on the Self Esteem of Teenage Girls Essay Example
The Effects of Facebook on the Self Esteem of Teenage Girls We live in a world full of judgment and competition, inescapably comparing ourselves and being compared to those around us. Though this doesn’t ever really go away at any walk of life, it is particularly intensified when you are a teenage girl ⎯ trust me, I know from experience. You’d think that with so many things that we girls have to deal with on a daily basis that are of the utmost importance, such as boys, school, who’s the thinnest with the best hair, etc., that social networking would only become another chore that us ladies dread to wake up and deal with. I’ve got to disagree with that in most cases, however. You see, nothing beats the blues better than waking up to messages from friends and picture comments telling you just how beautiful you are. Besides, girls already have it hard as it is ⎯ I believe that social networking sites are generally able to provide a positive spin on our levels of self-confidence. I know for a fact that I, and all of my friends, feed off of compliments. Whether we like to admit it or not, we all fish for them in some way or another. Facebook is the perfect setting for us to do this. Our Facebook pages are completely self-representative. We create them, choosing what we want the world to see of us. In a blog posting on Neurotic Physiology said, “we pick the best pictures of ourselves, only display the non-embarrassing music and movies that we like ("Mirror, Mirror on My Facebook Wall...").” The blogger performed a series of hypothetical tests relating to Facebook and the effects it has on a person’s self esteem. He tested whether or not exposure to one’s Facebook site provided a more positive or negative response than other traditional self-awareness stimuli, such as a mirror. It proved to have a positive effect. He also proved in a test that Facebook users who exclusively examine only their own profile will report higher self-esteem than participants who view other
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