Oppedisano Final

A Fairly Unprofessional Outlook on Facebook’s Negative Affect on Our Self-Esteem

How many times have you been walking to your car, or waiting in line at Starbucks, meeting a friend somewhere, etc., and whipped out your phone to check Facebook? How many times has the phrase “I wonder what’s new on Facebook,” or “I wonder how many likes I got,” passed through your brain? It’s become a source of constant impulse, a time-consuming tool for self-gratification through posts, pictures, moods, interests, videos, likes, and comments. There is so much information surrounding a user’s life for something to always occupy his or her time. This is simply part of our society now, part of the ambiguous “this is how it is.”

So what does this represent? Why is this important? What does this say about Facebook? About the users, about us? To me, it describes the relationship between the user and Facebook, how the user is obsessed with filling a profile to make it the “best” representation of who they are, on display for their “friends.” I put those words within quotation marks because these two ideas, the best version of oneself, and Facebook friends, can be tailored to extreme detail, or lackthereof. I doubt anyone would post anything about him- or herself being an asshole. No, people want to build good images of themselves, and want those images to be validated, to be how they are interpreted fully, opposed to people getting to know each other in person, over time through conversation, instead of Facebook-stalking someone only to get a terrible (terrible being simply incomplete or fabricated) impression.

The question again arises, why is this important? So what, if people glean these types of things from Facebook, about the people around them? Why this is important is precisely what I want to talk about: is this good? Is this good for the individual user, for his or her interpersonal skills and self-esteem? It seems to me that using Facebook as much as we do has had a negative effect on these aspects of the individual. The Facebook Mood Study can inform us about the effects of others’ activity on the individual user. By changing the news feed of some users, showing less positive and some more negative posts, these users showed more negative moods and posts, portraying how affected people are by the posts of their friends (Kramer et. al).

Seidman’s article on expression of the “true self” on Facebook, tells us that people find it easier to portray aspects of themselves on Facebook that they already possess but cannot easily portray in person. If this is true, then people are more likely to express themselves on Facebook and perhaps even become more reserved than would be natural within personal interaction. This would deteriorate people’s communication, and culture would become more digitalized, which, at least in my opinion, is inarguably inhuman. We are social creatures. Computers take away so much, so much of our feelings and emotions when we communicate through Facebook.

Our feelings and emotions aren’t the only aspects of ourselves that are heavily affected; our self-esteem - surely based at least somewhat in our thoughts and feelings - I believe is brought down by Facebook use. Seidman concludes that people express things on Facebook not to help other people or boost their self-esteem, but to try to boost their own, in an egoistic manner. If each person is trying to help him or herself, no one is helping anyone else. They say you can’t help someone until you’ve helped yourself, but no one is attempting, truly, to help others via Facebook. Now, this is looking through a lens that values, above all, the individual and his/her mental health and well-being; this is not to say that the only effects of Facebook are negative. Ellison et. al concludes from a survey taken by college students in 2006 (back when Facebook was only available to college students) that Facebook helps maintain connections past high school, connections that would otherwise deteriorate or would not occur, and professional connections. These are all beneficial in a world that is constantly hooked up to the Internet, I will not deny that people benefit in those ways. My argument is that there are much more important aspects to life that are being blindly overlooked because of the program shoving itself in our faces. If we were unable to communicate aside from human interaction, maybe people would be happier and communities would be healthier.

The reason all of this is important to me is because I am part of a generation that alienates you if you don’t use Facebook literally every day, a generation that communicates via text instead of face to face, where it’s weird to even make a phone call when you can text, a generation that is chock-full of mental illnesses and social anxiety, and claims to care about them, to treat them. And yet, we get wrapped up in simply meaningless shit that brings people down or boosts people up; I’ve had multiple conversations with friends, in person, talking about how many likes they got on a particular status or photo. Since when is this a form of social currency? Social currency that fuels people to compete for it. It pisses me off, to no end. People claim that the Internet helps them communicate, to get around social anxiety and self-esteem issues. As a person who continues to face serious issues with self-esteem and anxiety, I don’t understand - I can’t even fathom - how Facebook can truly help people. Help people be themselves, express the true self. Maybe it’s because I hold my true self close, so close I don’t even know who he is. But, being part of this fucking idiotic generation, I have to participate or be outcast. So I do, I use Facebook every single damn day, and get wrapped up in it despite my loathing. So yeah, you can call me a cynical hypocrite. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling depressed. Maybe it’s because I missed two days of meds and my mind is racing with shitty thoughts like it used to. Maybe it’s because I’m just a closed-minded, melodramatic asshole. Maybe it’s just the mood I’m in. Maybe it’s just another bad night. Whatever… I’m gonna go check Facebook.

Oh, and to my generation, to Facebook, to likes, pokes, and all that shit, and to myself for being that asshole who complains about it and goes right along: