Teenagers Social Self-Esteem

Teenagers’ Social Self-Esteem and Networking Behavior

Ever since Internet use became common as a leisure activity specifically in teenagers’ social networking, researchers have been interested in investigating its consequences regarding its effect on their social self-esteem vis-à-vis their networking behavior.

Valkenburg, Peter, and Schouten (2006), defined social self-esteem as adolescents’ evaluation of their self-worth or satisfaction with three dimensions of their selves: physical appearance, romantic attractiveness, and the ability to form and maintain close friendships. The emergence of the Internet has yielded opportunities for adolescents to form and maintain relationships online, which have multiplied in the past few years. Social

These reasons are even more significant for adolescents as they actively explore new forms of self-expression, identity development, and social interaction (Kidwell, Dunham, Bacho, & Pastorino, 1995).

Similarly, the first to show results on research related to social networking and self-esteem was conducted by Valkenburg et al. (2006), which stated that the consequences of adolescents’ use of friend networking sites gave positive and negative effects on their social self-esteem and well-being. Adolescents’ self-esteem was affected solely by the tone of the feedback that they received on their profiles: positive feedback enhanced adolescents’ self-esteem, while negative feedback decreased

In her article, “Facebook Causes Depression,” she shared that from a recent study done at the University of Michigan, it was found that older or middle-aged users were more likely to heighten their narcissism by using Facebook, posting pictures of themselves and “curating their own image” to “gain approval from their peers.” However, in the same article, it was revealed that the level of self-esteem may be influenced by other factors such as gender, or low socioeconomic