The effect of social media on self-esteem

Social media has been used to communicate with people worldwide, but recently, with the advancement in technology, it has become a way of reflecting personal life online. It provides incredible tools to create personal accounts that can be easily viewed by others. This may expose people to inappropriate interference and judgment from others and, indeed, have a profound impact on their feelings and on how they evaluate themselves, but this is not the only perspective with which things can be viewed. Social media is a source of inspiration. People are gathering to share their thoughts, interests and achievements. Indeed, the manner in which social media is used differs from person to person, and can range from active to passive use, the effects of its use on individuals being positive or negative. The objective of this research is two-fold: 1) to investigate the different categories of social media user, and 2) to explore how social media affects their self-esteem. To achieve the research objectives a multi-methods approach was employed: 1) an intensive systematic literature review was carried out, and 2) a questionnaire was distributed amongst different social media users to elicit their opinions on how the use of social media has impacted their self-esteem. The results reveal that there are seven categories of social media users, which are: creators, conversationalists, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and inactive users. The self-esteem of all categories of social media user was high. For this reason it can be said that the use of social media has a positive effect on self-esteem.