“THE EFFECT OF SOCIAL MEDIA ON SELF ESTEEM AMONG

STUDENTS”

A GRADE- 10 STUDENT RESEARCH PAPER

Submitted to the English Teacher of

Grade – 10 Earth
Ramon Magsaysay National High School
Poblacion, Ramon Magsaysay , Zambonga Del Sur

In partial fullfillment of requirements

For 4th Quarter of
Grade – 10 Earth

By:

Yano French Dwight C.

 CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
INTODUCTION
1.1

Early 21st century marked the emergence and growth of social networking sites in the world. Since then these sites have become a major part of
people’s lives,specially the lives of the youth. Many teenagers are using social media, especially Facebook, to build relationships, connect with the
world, share and gain knowledge and imformation, build stronger personalities and have better social lives (Boyd, 2007). Mitchell (2002).claimed
that social networking sites are used by youngsters to get engaged in
romantic and casual online relationships. It has been observed by the
changing behavior of the people that social media has many negative
repercussions on people. Social networking sites help people to make social
comparisons which increase the psychological distress of individuals and as
a result lower the overall level of self-esteem (Chen & Lee, 2013). Many
observers and researchers believe that due to increase in the usage of social
networking sites, people have become the victims of lower self-esteem and
self-growth.

1.2 Objectives
The major objective of this research is to highlight a clear impact of
Facebook; as a most popular and frequently used social media sight on the
self-esteem of youngsters. A mix method approach adopted therein would
further enhance our study design and would provide clear insight towards
direction of such relationship. This study would divert the attention of
individuals & help them analyze their over indulgence on social media with
in the most precious hours of their life and its possible consequences on
lowering their social esteem.
 1.3 Scope of the Study
Due to the constraints of time, money and geographical boundaries,
this research was conducted in IOBM in Karachi, Pakistan. The sample size
has also been limited to 150 participants due to time constraints. This
research is narrow in scope and can be subject to limitations.
One of the inherent limitations of the study was that the respondents
were not observed, they were given questionnaires to fill. So the results of
the research depend upon the integrity and truthfulness of the subjects.
Secondly all social networking sites were not included in the research. Only
Facebook was considered the representative of all the social networking
sites.

1.4 Problem Statement

High usage of social media is resulting in lower self-esteem amongst youth.
1.5 Research Questions
• Does any relationship exist between time spent on Facebook and selfesteem of individuals?
• What is the nature of such relationship?
• What factors of social media are responsible for lowering self-esteem
of individuals?
• What solutions could be offered to solve this dilemma?

1.6 Hypothesis
H0: there is no relationship between social media and self esteem
Ha: there is a relationship between social media and self esteem
 Literature Review:
The use of social networking sites has globalized immensely in the
past decade. Facebook is the most widely used social networking site as it
has more than one billion users worldwide (Facebook, 2012). Apart from
being the medium for expression of opinion and platform for sharing of
knowledge and moments, Facebook has also reduced distances by making
people feel more connected and helped them build new relationships and
maintain the existing ones. (Boyd & Ellison, 2007).
One major feature of Facebook is to make the personal profiles of
users available for public or friends to view and scrutinize and allow them to
pass on their judgments and give feedback through comments to make sure
the user understands their opinion on his personal life (Muise et al., 2009;
Boyd & Ellison, 2007).
These opinions of other people, either friends or public, and the feedback
from them have very strong effect on people’s self-esteems. Heatherton and
Polivy (1991) claim that the concept of self-esteem can be either stable or
fluid in nature i.e. it can take time to develop for some people while it can
change with trends and daily events for others. While negative feedback
lowers the self-esteem of individuals, positive feedback increases the selfesteem to a very high degree (Valkenburg et al., 2006).
Some of the researchers have identified the major benefits and
advantages of social networking sites. For example, Facebook gives
individuals a sense of freedom and identity, boosts up the confidence level of
individuals and cheers them up during hard times (Nyagah, Stephen and
Muema, 2015). It also helps shy and introvert students, who find it difficult
to initiate conversation, to build social capital as it reduces the level of
restrictions involved in communication and offers a forum to build healthy
and strong bonds and relationships (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2007).
 Amichai, Hamburger & Vinitzky (2010) argue that many Introverts build
relationships through social networking sites because usually they find
difficulties during face to face dealings.
In order to fulfill their affiliation needs majority of the humans get
possessed by an elementary drive which forces them to make social
comparisons between themselves and others (Schachter, 1959). These
affiliation needs are triggered by many social networking sites. Festinger
(1954) claimed that these social networking sites lead many people to do
self-evaluations and make social comparisons between themselves and others
based on social classes, social roles, beauty, popularity, wealth accumulation
and other social functions.
People engage in two types of comparisons on social networking sites,
upward and downward comparison. The former one is the comparison
between an individual and those superior from him and possessing positive
attributes while the latter one marks the comparison between an individual
and those inferior than him and possessing negative attributes (Wills, 1981;
Wood, 1989). Lockwood and Kunda (1997) argue that upward social
comparisons can be inspirational for people as they could focus on
replicating their comparison targets behavior and attitudes. But it has also
been observed that upward comparisons make people feel inferior and have
negative evaluations of themselves (Morse & Gergen, 1970). As a result,
these upward comparisons in most of the cases have a negative effect on the
self-esteems of people (Vogel, Rose, Roberts and Eckles, 2014).
 Some researchers disagree with this and claim that generally it is just the
internet which affects the self-esteem of individuals not the social
networking sites specifically (Valkenburg, Peter and Schouten, 2006).
Ellison et al (2007) found out that youngsters with low self-esteem find
Facebook more beneficial as compared to the ones with high self-esteem.
Due to the use of Facebook people with low self-esteems possess more social
capital than the ones with high self-esteems (Tazghini & Siedlecki, 2013).