Social Media & the role it plays in Self Identity

Over the years, social media has become extremely popular as more platforms are arising and more and more people are joining social media. It is a way to stay connected with friends and family and communicate with people all over the world. Social media is becoming increasingly prominent in young teenagers everyday lives as the majority of teenagers spend most of their free time on certain social media platforms. However, many people can argue that these social media platforms cause more bad than good, due to the effects it has on its users.

As social media has become more well known, it's become a huge factor in how people view themselves because of its billions of users. Lots of users of social media, who have big platforms, tend to only show the 'best part' of their lives, which creates a fake reality to everyone who is viewing their posts. Many celebrities, like the Kardashians, use filters and edit their photos in order to look a certain way, which creates unrealistic beauty/body expectations for younger audiences. This can massively effect young peoples mental health and how they view themselves because it tells people how they should look to fit into society or to get noticed on social media. It can destroy young peoples confidence and self-esteem, as they are now changing the way they look in order to be what society means by 'perfect' and get as much likes and attention they can get on social media platforms. As this becomes more normalised, more and more people start to follow the way these celebrities are presenting themselves online, creating a false narrative on who they actually are and only showing the most interesting parts of their lives.

Additionally, social media provides people a platform to bully people and spread unnecessary hate, causing social media to become increasingly toxic. Social media is an easy place for people to cyberbully others because there are so many users and anyone is able to join. As younger children are joining social media platforms at such young ages, they are exposed to potential cyberbullying, which can ruin their mental health and can cause depression or anxiety just from being on social media.

On the other hand, social media can be seen as a place of good because it can spread awareness of important messages and can provide positive representations of groups. It also allows for certain subjects to become more excepted and normalised by society. For example, many celebrities with millions of followers are coming out as non-binary, like Sam Smith and Demi Lovato. Because of their huge platforms, it allows for lots more people to become more aware of people who identify as non-binary and the use of the pronouns 'they/them'. This allows for many more people to feel comfortable with expressing themselves because it's becoming more normalised. As well as this, social media can also provide a space where people can feel excepted and can related to others who identify the same way or have had similar experiences.