Hidden Psychological Dangers Of Social Media

As technology continues to advance, more and more people become dependent on their technology for news, communication, transportation, education, and more. The majority of the people around the globe use social networking sites, also known as SNS, to connect with other people around the world. Instagram, a popular social media platform, is a photo and video sharing social network service where users can upload pictures or videos. These pictures or videos can then be further edited with filters and geographical locations.

Users can also upload “stories” which can be seen within 24 hours of the upload. Instagram may appear harmless as the interface appears to be user-friendly, but there are negative psychological side effects that the users will experience, especially the younger audience, thanks to social currency. Social currency, also known as social capital, is an individual’s online influence and access to influencers, based on their presence across social media platforms. Usage of this platform may result in the feeling of loneliness, the loss of self-identity, a lesser value of self-worth, and have a negative impact on their mental health overall.

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In this paper, I will discuss these hidden psychological dangers of social currency/media towards the younger generation on Instagram.

Instagram is a portfolio in which users post pictures or videos of their “perfect self”. As Instagram has more of a focus on self-presentation, users will present themselves to look appealing to social society. Traits such as physical appearance, incredible body strength, lavish lifestyles, social popularity, meals in glamorous restaurants, and wealth are often displayed on the Instagram platform.

This allows users to share their lifestyle, physique, or wealth with other Instagrammers, causing people, especially the younger audience, to compare their lives with others which often results in jealousy and insecurity. As adolescents have access to these platforms, they will be the most prone to depression or anxiety because they are “facing various developmental changes, such as the struggle for independence and autonomy”. To repress these feelings, users will often post good looking portraits or selfies of themselves. The consequence of hiding and ignoring their emotions can damage their mental health.

Mental health in the past decades was a taboo subject. Often, people who are struggling with mental health are neglected in society due to the negative stigma and prejudice. Ever since the early 21st century, mental health has gained more recognition as people around the globe uses social media to raise awareness. However, users can still struggle with anxiety and depression from social media. As Instagram is a growing platform which is targeted towards kids, teenagers, and young adults, they will be the most vulnerable to mental health problems. In 2017, a survey from The Royal Society for Public Health asked 1500 participants aged fourteen to twenty-four, which social media platform impacted their mental health. The status of mental health is based off a list that included “anxiety, depression, loneliness, sleep, bullying, and fear of missing out”.” Instagram was rated the platform with the worst mental health impact, out of a survey that also included Facebook, Snapchat, YouTube, and Twitter. The impact Instagram had was “particularly on perceptions of body image, and for increasing the fear of missing out, and having a detrimental effect on sleep”. In addition to mental health, “ Instagram use might stimulate negative comparison behaviors, which in turn may increase young people’s depressed mood”. The feelings of inferiority will constantly affect the users as they consume social media. Through the countless pieces of evidence, it cannot be denied that the usage of Instagram has negative effects on mental health and should only be used in moderation.

As social media shapes the way we communicate with friends and family in the current generation, people are always connected to each other virtually. As human beings, we desire to feel connected with each other with a sense of community and belongingness. We want to feel loved, secure, and most importantly, happy. Being able to communicate with family and friends around the globe is convenient. This may be deemed as the state of the future but there are more problems than visible on the surface. Despite being connected to everyone, there is evidence that the “problem of loneliness persists in the same societies where social media usage is likely at its highest”. Social media only connects people at a superficial level. This essentially means that even though we are in an age where communication with other people is at its peak, humanity does not feel any more connected, especially in developed countries. We have infinitely more ways to connect with new people, while having the luxury of always having someone to talk to, and yet, the problem of loneliness still exists. According to one study, there is a “relationship between use of popular social media platforms and feeling lonely”. The one explanation why people feel so lonely is because they are replacing the traditional physical interaction with the consumption of social media. The main problem with social media interaction is that “the lack of eye contact, which is a prominent feature of the resulting social interactions, leads to high self-disclosure, as textual communications devoid of eye contact invite direct and relaxed conversations”. There is also a missing bond with other people such as the touch of another’s hand, or the feelings of an invisible thread that bonds people at an emotional level. In essence, virtual presence cannot replace physical presence and personal bonding, further proving that higher rates of social media usage may result in worse mental health.

The standard definition of loneliness is defined as an unpleasant emotion due to isolation. One researcher defines the term loneliness as “terms of one's connectedness to others, or more specifically as “the unpleasant experience that occurs when a person's network of social relations is deficient in some important way””. This describes the new phenomenon called “FOMO”, which stands for fear of missing out. As people, especially the younger generation, see their friends hanging out without them, they essentially feel left out. This results in social media users to feel lonely and depressed. The fear of missing out phenomenon appears to be new and unpopular, “loneliness is a potential pandemic “on par with obesity and substance abuse””. To prevent the feeling of loneliness and isolation, users will look for different ways to obtain a feeling of acceptance in society and the feeling of self-affirmation.

As users consume more social media, they slowly lose their ability to express their own self-identity. People are constantly consuming the ideal lifestyle or body-type. To prevent users from feeling left out, users will often create a façade through fake pictures that create the image of living a lavish lifestyle or being happy in a cliche pose. Users will avoid posting about themselves when they are having a hard time or having negative feelings as “SNS use fulfills two broad needs: the need to belong and the need for self-presentation”. It is extremely difficult to express their own identity when users are have the maintain their “identity” they have amongst their peers, friends, and family. This would lead users to make alternative accounts which is known as “finsta”. Finstas are known as second instagram account where people would express the good, the bad, and the ugly without being judged. It is “Reserved for a smaller and more selective circle of friends, these accounts display a comparatively unfiltered view of a person’s life”. Their private confessions and their honest opinions will not take a toll in their public life. Especially in this generation, employers and universities look at people’s social media profiles before they get hired or accepted. The intended audience of each users restrict their ability to express their true self due to the reputation they need to maintain.

As beauty is standardized by media, “the societal beauty ideals and a tendency to compare one’s appearance to the appearance of others” begins to arise in the behaviour of teenagers and young adults. Users will often post selfies or use filters to enhance their looks to make themselves more attractive in order to get more “likes”. This can cause unhealthy habits in users, especially females, resulting in dissatisfaction with their body and looks. As people are constantly exposed to images of unrealistic beauty, they will often leave feeling insecure and some will resort to plastic surgery or dieting. In the Western society, the ideal body type for females are “slender, feminine physique with a small waist and little body fat”. By undergoing diets, individuals would lose their physical self-identity and damage their mental health as they are unhappy with their own body. This is dangerous towards the adolescent’s developing mind as it could cause eating disorder or in worse cases, depression which leads to suicide. The unrealistic beauty standard causes people to lose their self identity mentally and physically.

As the younger generation continues to consume social media, social currency is becoming a prevalent form of measuring the value of self-worth and status. Social currency is a virtual credit that is used on media platforms which has no physical value. This currency comes in forms of “likes”, “comments”, “shares”, “retweet”, “views” and “followers”. In the platform of Instagram, social currency is made up of “followers”, “following”, “likes”, and “comments”. The more “followers” and “likes” the user has, the more influential the user is. Self-worth defines how an individual addressed their value and worthiness as a human being in society. Ever since social currency is introduced to social media, there is a correlation between social currency and value of self-worth. Users no longer care about what the sentimental value of the post to them when they upload because they let society decide the value. To increase one’s value of self-worth on social media, users will have to obtain more “followers” and “likes”. This results in users becoming narcissistic. As “narcissism is one of the most powerful predictors of self-promotional content via social media”, users could end up becoming arrogant and reckless. The exposure to social currency is extremely unhealthy to adolescents. This can lead users to follow social trends blindly in order to get more “likes” and “followers” which can be dangerous. A notorious example which was extremely popular in early 2018 was called the “tide-pod challenge”. Individuals would partake in the challenge by recording a video of themselves chewing the tide pod and attempt to consume it. This results in many teenagers poisoning themselves and in some more tragic cases, death. In other words, users will follow these trends so they could fit in with the society and gain popularity or self-worth through the amount of likes they accumulate from these trends.

Another method users use to increase one’s self-worth is to buy followers and likes. Social media “encourage users to present the most positive aspects of one's life with the motivation of gaining virtual approval from friends via likes and comments.” In order to gain more likes and followers, users will often post hashtags on their pictures such as #f4f, which stands for follow for follow. In other cases, users could just buy followers and likes from third party-sites. There are websites users could use such as https://www.idigic.net/buy-instagram-followers/ where the rate is $10 USD for 1.000 followers. However, when people do purchase followers and likes, they are ending up paying for the numbers alone. In one blog, the blogger purchased 1,000 followers and there were “no kind of engagement whatsoever”.These followers were “A bizarre mix of teenagers posting shirtless selfies, accounts with no posts at all, and more than a few bots peddling webcam porn”. If the numbers of social currency have a psychological impact with the user’s self-confidence and satisfaction, the user have lost the blur differences between the digital world and real life. This is extremely unsafe, especially for kids and teenagers as they would measure their status would reflect on virtual credits.

The hidden dangers of using Instagram and social media is privacy issues and the influence it has to the younger audience which can potentially damage the user’s future. Social media comes with the illusion of privacy, as platforms guarantee the user’s safety. However, these companies rarely have the user’s security in mind. There are over billions of people who use social media and the majority of them never read the terms and conditions when they signed up. Privacy is a big issue among social media as there are “influx of personal data available online” . Privacy can be easily breached on Instagram as users can leak pictures of others on Instagram through screenshots. There are no notifications to the user’s profile whenever a screenshot is taken. The dangers of social currency also plays a role privacy as users would have to make their profile public if they want more “followers” and “likes”. The false sense of security allows user to believe that they can delete their pictures or videos on Instagram permanently. However, there are copies saved in the databases and backups of the platform. Instagram has the right to use pictures posted on Instagram so there is no guarantee security for users that their collection of pictures are safe. Safety is also a risk amongst teenagers, as stalkers and cyberbullies can create fake profiles to gain access to user’s profile. This can lead to unwanted situations, so users of all social media platforms must remain cautious to ensure that they are taking the correct precautionary steps.

In this generation, users are extremely short sighted and do not have the foresight to think about how their current actions may affect their future. Like in all other aspects of life, every action has a reaction. Specifically, in this case, a offhanded post now may have a dramatic impact on one’s future. One example would be when a Florida woman posted a picture of her Halloween costume on Instagram. The photo caused controversy as the costume referred to a racially charged legal case. She ended up getting fired from her job as a response from the outraged community. Also, there is a correlation that social media causes people to lack empathy and become desensitized to the news around the world. There is evidence of “declines in empathy could be related to people spending time online and engaging in superficial interactions with others”. Similarly, “spending time online displaces time spent with people offline, which could make social skills such as empathy become “rusty””. For example, with the countless news stories of murders, readers have become numb to the entire topic, and as a result, seem to care about the entire issue significantly less. This causes people to become desensitised to the violent and dramatic events around the world.

With the popularity of social media, each different social networking sites is catered to different audiences. Instagram has been one of the most influential media platforms towards the younger generation. Despite its popularity, users, especially kids, teenagers, and young adults, are exposed to unhealthy psychological side effects such as mental health, loneliness, loss of self-identity, and value of their self-worth. Users consuming the societal ideals of a lifestyle or appearance can lead users to feel depressed or anxious, impacting their mental health. The constant virtual connection to social media deprives users from physical interaction, resulting in the feeling of isolation from the rest of society. Users are often restricted from expressing their unfiltered thoughts and opinions, as they want their social identity to remain perfect, with nothing that could potentially taint their public image. As such, social currency is the ideal measurement of self worth. However, users should not rely on the opinion of others too look for approval, but rather, be comfortable as themselves and build an image that makes themself happy. Although there are obvious benefits to social media, users should be careful of the manner in which it is used, as it could be detrimental to their future. Therefore, users should be careful of the information that they post online, as there can be significant privacy and security risks. As social media provides a convenient way to communicate with each other, platforms such as Instagram can be detrimental to mental health, leaving youth struggling to cope.