- Social media is todays epidemic and can be accessed by almost anyone. Teenagers are usually the ones up to date with modern social media. The media has both negative and positive affects; psychologically, anthropologically, and socially based on where you classify yourself.
How does it affect you socially?
Social media has its social aspects towards people. Firstly, it makes you judge your social stratification on a day to day basis. Social stratification refers to a system by which society ranks people in a hierarchy based on their greater status, wealth, and power. For example, celebrities are usually the ones placed higher on this hierarchy because of their wealth, power, and greater status. Meanwhile, garbage men/women are placed lower on this hierarchy because of lacking wealth, power, and greater status. This can affect ones self esteem on the lower part of the hierarchy.
Secondly, social media can lead to social inequality, which is a process in society that limits or harms a group’s social status, social class, and social circle. This may affect your self esteem as well. Social media can limit your social status because it slowly removes you from society, which can make your feel uncomfortable with others and can drop your self esteem.
How does it affect you psychologically?
Social media can impact you psychologically. Firstly, psychological defence mechanisms can develop over time if your self esteem is affected. Defence mechanisms help reduce harmful stimuli. For example, denial is a defence mechanism that refuses you to admit that something unpleasant has happened. People that have poor esteem usually deny the fact that they are unstable and choose to ignore it.
Secondly, social media can make you constantly doubt yourself, which can impact your ego and super ego. The ego is a person’s sense of self-esteem or self-importance. Meanwhile, the superego operates the moral conscience. Social media can pressure you to fit into society even though you don’t want to. It can make you change who you really are, therefore it puts your ego down and it impacts your entire psychological outlook on life , which can affect your self esteem.
How does it affect you anthropologically?
Social Media can impact you anthropologically. Firstly, social media can interfere with one’s culture. Culture is the social behavior and norms found in human societies. Social media can try to mould one’s culture into something it’s really not. It can make you feel ashamed of who you really are and where you come from. For example, social media tries to mould the islamic culture(s) into something it is not, which can lower the islamic people’s self esteem.
Secondly, it can also interfere with one’s race/ethnicity. A race is a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society. Social media has it’s tendency of discriminating a certain race/ethnicity. For example, black people are constantly being discriminated on a day to day basis, and social media tries to expand on it negatively. This may put a lot of black people’s self esteem down.
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Melania's Social Science CPT 