Social Media's Influence On Self Esteem

The media are often convincing young women to question how they look making them feel insecure, if they do not look a certain way they are not beautiful. In most cases, teenagers are looking at people that do not exist, the media is so advanced that they are now able to create a woman using body parts from others. Most models who are placed on the cover of a magazine could be so “perfect” that she doesn't even exist. Most adolescent girls get their inspiration for how they look for the media, reality shows. These women who have it all, fame and fortune, everything that society claims to be important, and how much power the media actually has.

These influences do not just exist on television, social media has the same impact. Social media

Statistics prove that 80 percent of Adult women do not like the way they look, they also show that 80 percent of 10 year old girls are afraid of being “fat”. In order to understand the effect that social media has on self-esteem, we need to understand what self esteem is exactly. Self esteem is defined as one's confidence level, self respect. The media has often been criticized for advertising unrealistic standards of beauty, but in doing so the media has acknowledged that it is important to young girls. The models wearing Size 0 clothing are now looked at as characters as opposed to them being

Teenagers at times may be so obsessed with being accepted and validated that they may do “whatever it takes” to gain popularity, from posting inappropriate photo to violence.

Often times older generations make statements concerning the way that younger generations would not be able to function without the use of a cellular device and social media does not make statement any less true. Teens spend more than 2 hours a day on social media, false images of the world cloud their judgement throughout the day. Social media will forever be apart of our day to day lives so we all must learn how to create a healthy relationship with it. Despite the negative effects of social networking on young girls it gives most girls the opportunity to connect with others through shared interest or express themselves in ways they may have feared before.

Social media, like everything else in the world, has its pros and cons and it hindsight, it completely up to the individual on what and who they allow to have an impact on their life. Social media trends that promote natural beauty such as, #nofilter or “no makeup challenge” encourage girls to have a better with themselves. Cameron