The first thing you do after waking up is check your phone and you see your friends spammed stories of them at a restaurant last night. You give it a like. You go on with your day and make yourself some breakfast and you think why not snap a photo?- it looks aesthetically very pleasing and your followers might appreciate some Monday motivation, put on a filter to make it look more pretty and you post it. Later that day, you spend an average of 3 hours scrolling your feed, watching YouTube videos and tweeting. Before calling it a day you post a photo of the sunset because who doesn’t like a beautiful sky, spam photos of your pets, update your bio on LinkedIn, scroll a little more and then go to sleep. Sounds like a typical day, doesn’t it?
We live in a world where social media has replaced face-to-face conversations, and “filters” have masked real beauty. We associate our worth with the number of likes our photos get. We are becoming more and more interested in extrinsic values- a pretty and aesthetic looking breakfast rather than a nutritional one. The “offline” world is no longer interesting for us. Various studies show that we are living in an increasingly narcissistic society and social media might be one of the reasons.
Narcissism- narcissism includes characteristics such as an inflated image of oneself, self-importance, perceived uniqueness, exploitative behavior, high and constant need for attention and validation, etc.
Narcissism vs Self Esteem
Self-esteem is considered a healthy and positive attribute but is often confused with narcissism. Self-esteem roots from real accomplishments, whereas narcissism comes from the sheer lack of it.
Self-esteem naturally rises when an individual achieves positive and encouraging things in something they’ve mastered, which is a good thing. When people are praised for real achievements, they can build real self-esteem and feel less insecure in their respective mastered talent.
Quite the opposite remains the concept of narcissism. People with narcissistic traits are influenced by that distinct lack of achievements. They fear failure and thus, being perceived as a failure. They are driven by an unhealthy sense to be seen as the best. Social media leads to false-positive self-view and develops a codependent relationship with social media.
How can Social Media incite Narcissism?
Narcissism requires constant validation and social media assists in providing it. Likes, followers and friends are various tools of social media that feed validation and endorsement. Likes and views make them feel seen and spurs a sense of accomplishment and makes them feel better about themselves. This does improve self-esteem but further can lead to attention-seeking.
Instagram and Snapchat have several filters with various effects, colours, and lighting that can immensely enhance the original photos, which helps create a self-inflated image. This wasn’t an option before social media existed and people were confident in themselves. Photos are edited to please the societal definition of “perfection.”
Since narcissism gratifies on outside validation, it not only associates with extrinsic values it also associates with the number of connections a person has. The connections can be calibrated by the number of likes, followers and friends. The higher the number, the greater the validation received.
This way social media provides the daily dose of attention and admiration needed to a narcissistic individual.
Social Media: a Social Problem or a Social Solution
Narcissism might seem harmless at first, but it has many downsides. It is not yet certain whether social media is the cause or effect of self-inflated views, but we can say that social media is certainly to blame for some of the narcissistic trends on the rise. Many studies provide such proof and the link between the rise of narcissism due to excessive social media use.
The real question is what can be done to prevent it. Social media in its essence cannot exist without being a tad bit narcissistic and we cannot just stop using it. So maybe tone down the use and put that phone away from time to time. Perhaps we should focus on how to use social media to benefit us rather than negatively affecting our mental health. At the end of the day, those never-ending double taps don’t define our worth.
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