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The Impact of Social Media on Self-Esteem: How digital validation affects our self-perception
15 Plays3 months ago
In this episode of Growing With Sol, I dive into how social media affects our self-perception and mental wellbeing. As someone who's "chronically online" myself, I explore the complicated relationship we have with platforms that simultaneously connect us and disconnect us from reality.
I share recent statistics showing the average person spends over 140 minutes daily on social media, along with research revealing how increased screen time weakens the protective effects of high self-esteem against depression.
The comparison culture we experience online creates a distorted view of reality, as we measure our everyday lives against others' highlight reels. I discuss practical strategies for developing healthier social media habits, including creating boundaries, practicing self-validation, and building real-world connections.
Whether you're struggling with social media's impact on your confidence or simply looking to create a healthier digital lifestyle, this episode offers practical guidance for navigating our online world while protecting your self-worth.
Remember, your worth isn't defined by likes or followers. You are enough, exactly as you are. 💙
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Transcript
Introduction to Marisol Boran and Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello beautiful souls and welcome back to another installment of Growing With Soul. My name is Marisol Boran and I am a certified life coach specializing in self-esteem and confidence.
Impact of Social Media on Self-Esteem
00:00:12
Speaker
The Growing With Soul podcast focuses on continual growth and healing, especially in the small steps that we take every single day If you are looking to heal, to grow, and connect with your true self, this podcast is for you.
00:00:26
Speaker
In today's episode, we are going to be focusing on the impact that social media has on our self-esteem. It is something that I think is inevitable for all of us. I think it's very much...
00:00:39
Speaker
just and not an ingrained it's an ingrained part of our lives at this point even for people who say that they're they don't use social media they're not on social media often i found that those people still have accounts that they've just abandoned probably for better for their own their own self okay the betterment of their ah themselves they have stopped using social media which i get with that being said Social media is something that many of us are on for multiple hours a day.
00:01:09
Speaker
If you are like me, self-proclaimed chronically online, you're probably online a lot more than the average person. I definitely am. And it's it's it's a little embarrassing. It is a little embarrassing. But I'm chronically online. And I know that when I'm on TikTok scrolling a away, everyone else there who's posting is also chronically online and they are my people.
00:01:34
Speaker
With that being said, to give you a little bit more stats around it all, as of 2024, average daily average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide so everybody in the world who uses social media that amounted to 143 minutes per day of social media usage which actually is is less than the previous year less than 2023 which that amounted minutes per day in so there has been bit of an improvement worldwide on social media usage.
00:02:08
Speaker
I am not one of those people, but overall, it looks like we're doing a little bit more, a little bit better in going outside, touching some grass. Good on us.
Benefits vs. Negatives of Social Media
00:02:19
Speaker
For a little bit more context, back in 2019, there was a global online survey where a significant share of the respondents stated that social media had had a positive impact.
00:02:32
Speaker
Essentially, it had increased their access to information, it provided an ease of communication, as well as freedom of expression. All beautiful, wonderful things.
00:02:44
Speaker
On the flip side, however, a lot of those respondents also mentioned that social media had worsened their personal privacy, increased the polarization in politics, and heightened everyday distractions.
00:02:59
Speaker
I think if we all took a moment to pause and really just take a look around ourselves, our communities, our countries, we can definitely see that.
00:03:12
Speaker
That is definitely taking place as well. Do we have more access to information? Yeah. Are we able to communicate seamlessly with other people? Definitely. Are we able to express ourselves a lot more on social media? Yes.
00:03:26
Speaker
ah Some people shadow band and stuff, on unfortunately. Things like that do happen. So is there freedom of expression? More or less. But in terms of personal privacy and being down, yeah.
00:03:39
Speaker
Polarization and politics, heightened everyday distractions, it it doesn't take a genius to notice that going on too. So with social media, there is a lot of benefit, a lot of good, and also a lot of downside that really balances out.
External Validation and Self-Worth
00:03:53
Speaker
But when we look at it a little bit more personally and how it's impacting us us as individuals, we can definitely see that it does have a negative impact on our self-worth for many of us.
00:04:05
Speaker
A lot of people use ah social media, use the comments, the likes, the shares, ah use all of that as a form of validation.
00:04:16
Speaker
It's essentially external validation. And I think that a lot of us do experience that. And when it's a positive, beautiful thing and people are liking everything and complimenting us, it feels great because you have all these people who are liking what you posted, liking what you produce, liking you.
00:04:33
Speaker
So that external validation feels wonderful. But what happens when the likes don't happen, the comments are negative, or a certain post doesn't perform well? How do you feel about yourself then?
00:04:45
Speaker
And even with that, what about comparison culture? How many of us would go onto social media and we see someone's perfect life? We see someone's perfect and clean and immaculate house. We go and we see somebody else going on like their third trip of the year and it's not even June.
00:05:02
Speaker
Like, and we feel horrible because that's not our lives. Our homes don't look like that. We're not going on trips. We don't have the latest and greatest.
00:05:16
Speaker
We start to compare ourselves. And that's just lifestyle. What about we go and we see someone with an amazing physique and it's like, I don't look like that. And now we're comparing our own bodies to other people as well all the time on social media.
00:05:30
Speaker
So comparison culture is, i think, ah very present for everyone when we go online and we go on social media and can definitely have a negative impact on our self-esteem and our self-worth.
Social Media's Effect on Adults
00:05:44
Speaker
To get into the nitty gritty a little bit more, when we're looking at how exactly it can affect us when we're looking at, say, the metrics of social media, i want to begin by being very transparent.
00:05:56
Speaker
In researching this topic, I found a lot of articles that were centered on social media and adolescents, social media and teenagers. That's not to say that social media doesn't have a negative impact on adults.
00:06:09
Speaker
I think it very much can. In fact, one of the reasons why I really wanted to talk about this on my podcast is because I've had conversations about social media being a negative influence or negative, a source of negativity for people, like with my clients, like I've had this conversation with clients, which is why I think it is important to talk about it here.
00:06:31
Speaker
So yes, and social media can have a negative impact on adults as well. it It doesn't seem to be as studied as it is with teenagers. i feel like that makes sense because as a society, we want to protect our children as much as possible. So I get it With that being said, i did find one particular study, which I'll link in the show notes, that did look at social media screen time, like the role of that in self-esteem and depressive symptoms in college students.
00:07:01
Speaker
So technically adults, though they are still within like the education system here in the U.S. The findings of this study were consistent with some of the other literature that they looked at in conducting the study, basically meaning that as a self-esteem decreased, the risk of having depressive symptoms increased.
00:07:24
Speaker
So when we look at that in relation to social media as well, the study did also acknowledge that, where it showed that each additional hour of daily social media usage had this inverse association.
00:07:43
Speaker
Essentially, looking ah again at social media, as te the ten much time that we spend on social media and how it affects us, our self-esteem, and its influence in depressive symptoms as well. So essentially, each additional hour of daily social media time weakened the inverse association between self-esteem and depressive symptoms.
00:08:02
Speaker
Meaning the protective effect, the protective effect that high self-esteem has against depressive symptoms weakened as daily time spent on social media increases.
00:08:13
Speaker
So essentially what this study discovered that even somebody with high self-esteem typically does not have higher depressive symptoms. So essentially, the higher the self-esteem, the less likely it is that you're going to experience depressive symptoms.
Weakened Self-Esteem's Protective Effect
00:08:29
Speaker
However, that is negatively impacted by the amount of time said a person spends on social media because we're on social media comparing ourselves, beginning to feel worse about ourselves, which negatively impacts our self-esteem, which then increases the likelihood of the depressive symptoms.
00:08:47
Speaker
wo So if you are spending a lot of time on social media, there is this potential. It's not necessarily a cause per se. It found this...
00:09:03
Speaker
correlation. So correlation, not necessarily causation, but it is something to really take a look at if you are experiencing a lot of negative emotions while you're on social media. Like, are there also certain people that you're following that bring about these negative emotions as well?
00:09:23
Speaker
Something to pay attention to, especially if you are already dealing with depressive symptoms and episodes. Again, i also want to highlight that there do need to be more studies on this topic, especially since social media is such a huge part of our lives.
00:09:41
Speaker
And I don't see it going anywhere. If anything, like it's just going to become more ingrained in our lives when we start looking at like virtual and augmented realities. Like, I mean, I don't want to get into that. Like, I remember learning about augmented and virtual reality when I was in grad school. And it like the prototypes of things that like we studied, it was horrendous. I don't want to be walking down the street and like seeing ads pop up that aren't even there in real life.
00:10:09
Speaker
I'm going to be like that curmudgeonly like old person if that were to be the case. In like 50 years. Anyway. Anyway. Let's go ahead and look at comparison culture. and Comparison culture is alive and well.
00:10:25
Speaker
Whether we are walking about out in the world. Or if we are on Instagram. So. It is a major contributor to everything I just mentioned. When it comes to self esteem. And like depressive episodes.
00:10:38
Speaker
And I say for any age group. Again. mainly work with. women in their 30s mainly, but I've worked with people across the age spectrum. I've worked with people who are in their 50s.
00:10:52
Speaker
I've worked with people who are in their 20s. So when I talk about comparison culture, whether it is on social media, in real life, it is there. And again, my my belief that we as individuals have this like innate drive within us to compare ourselves to others is just, it's there. It's not going to go away.
Emotional Impact of Comparison Culture
00:11:14
Speaker
With that being said, in order to define comparison culture and social comparison as a whole, it is a form of sociological self-esteem.
00:11:25
Speaker
So where we derive our sense of self through comparing ourselves with others. So it provides us, I think, a way to reflect on ourselves. It provides us the opportunity to look at ourselves and sort of gauge kind of where we stand.
00:11:43
Speaker
In relation to other people. So given that we are social beings, I again, I think it's inevitable for us to do this. Where we are able to draw the line, though, I think is where it's going to be the the most important thing, essentially.
00:11:58
Speaker
Because if we're going to go about comparing ourselves, you know, innately, where we can't necessarily stop it, it just kind of happens. We need to really pay attention to our emotions and we need to really pay attention to our internal dialogue, essentially. Like what is happening when we're doing this? How are we feeling when certain comparisons come into play?
00:12:23
Speaker
Additionally, i do want to highlight that when it comes to social media and we are doing this comparison game that people social media... They're showing only all the good stuff.
00:12:36
Speaker
They're showing all of their highlights. They're showing the one room or corner in their house that looks beautiful and pristine.
00:12:47
Speaker
They're, of course, they're only showing the like three trips they went on in like six months. But they're not showing the times where they were like crying because they had a shit day.
00:12:58
Speaker
they Like that I think that we often – and i'm I'm that person too. I often forget that that's what's happening. When I see someone just hitting it out of the park and like they're posting um ah amazing stuff, like just doing the damn thing. I'm like, damn, like they're really out there doing it. Like, that's amazing. i wish I was that consistent. I wish I was doing that or I wish whatever X, y and Z. And it's like.
00:13:26
Speaker
OK, but. but Are they showing the difficulties that they went through to get there? um they didn't. they' They didn't show that. They're not necessarily showing the like sleepless nights also that they had to do in order to get to where they are.
00:13:43
Speaker
So feeling as if maybe someone has a better off than you just because of a video that they posted or an image that they posted is ultimately counterproductive to your own journey.
00:13:59
Speaker
And if we're looking at comparison of our physiques, which a lot of us do, I want to very much highlight that many of the images and videos now are heavily edited and curated.
00:14:12
Speaker
So a lot of them are going to be different angles, different lighting, like Facetune, Photoshop, whatever app they're using now to like edit videos.
00:14:24
Speaker
It's everywhere. So if you go and you see someone who looks absolutely gorgeous and you're like oh my God, I can never look like that. They don't even look like that. Okay, it's edited.
00:14:35
Speaker
One example I do want to give is, again, a client of mine who struggles to maintain a tidy home. And I get it. It's rough. Like having to clean a whole house on your own and things get messy. And I, my whole life, I've struggled to be a tidy person.
00:14:54
Speaker
Now, again, especially with this client, like things aren't dirty. They're just unorganized. You know the difference? And this client of mine has often told me like, oh, I went on social media. And like this person has this tidy home and it's so organized and it's beautiful. And my home can never look like that.
00:15:10
Speaker
And your home doesn't have to. For one, your home doesn't have to look like somebody else's home. And two, they're only showing you that one section that looks beautiful.
00:15:23
Speaker
And maybe they had cleaners come over to help clean. and Maybe they have the money to afford cleaners on a consistent basis. Maybe they have multiple people living in that home who are able to help clean and organize and tidy on a consistent consistent basis.
00:15:37
Speaker
And maybe that's not your situation. I literally on client calls have turned my camera around and be like, this is like, you see this, you see the wall, the couch, maybe i have a little thing as my background on zoom, but you also see a curated image of my background.
00:15:57
Speaker
And I've literally turned around and be like, I didn't make my bed today. boom bed not made or this isn't organized or whatever it is like and I'm still feeling good about myself.
00:16:09
Speaker
I don't need to be hard on myself because I didn't compare to this ideal version of what something should be.
Strategies for Combatting Negative Effects
00:16:16
Speaker
So what can be done in order to mitigate this?
00:16:23
Speaker
Have a digital wellness plan. If you are chronically online? What are ways that you can minimize the amount of time that you are online? What are some healthy habits and boundaries that you can create around social media?
00:16:37
Speaker
Perhaps it's no phone before bed, maybe like an hour or so. You're just not on your phone anymore. Maybe it's no phone in your room at night. Some people do that. I could never. It's also my alarm clock.
00:16:50
Speaker
Maybe it's having a setting where your phone goes grayscale an hour or two before bed. Perhaps no notifications on social media whatsoever.
00:17:03
Speaker
Maybe having time limits on the apps is going to work. Doesn't work for me because you know what I learned? You can just change the time limit.
00:17:17
Speaker
Time limits don't work for me because I just changed the time limit. Don't be like me. and have more discipline. Easier said than done. I know. I know. If you are struggling with low self-esteem already, i think go on social media and feel worse about yourself.
00:17:34
Speaker
Who are these people that you're following that are making you feel worse about yourself? And maybe the people aren't making you feel worse about you. They're not saying like you are a horrible person and you look gross. They're not saying these things, but you go online and you see their perfect lives, their perfect bodies, and you feel like shit about yourself.
00:17:50
Speaker
Maybe you don't need to be consuming their content. You can unfollow them. And you know what? On Instagram specifically, these are people that you personally know and it would be awkward to unfollow them, you can mute them.
00:18:05
Speaker
Mute their stories. Mute their profiles so you do not get any of their content, but you didn't have to unfollow. So it won't be a weird interpersonal moment later on. Additionally, you can do some self-validation exercises.
00:18:19
Speaker
You can practice techniques in order to build yourself up. Affirmations, reminders. If you need any extra help with that, you know, get that help because building yourself up is going to be the best thing you do no matter what.
00:18:36
Speaker
Another thing that you can do is also build community. If you are online a lot, you can make friends online. That's totally a thing that happens all the time. So if you are able to find people online and you've built connections, like take that offline.
00:18:51
Speaker
Like if you have any like friends that you've been talking to, if they're in your same area, go out for coffee, go out for tea or something, have a little picnic, whatever it is. But meet the people offline too. Make the online friend a real friend in real life.
00:19:05
Speaker
Or if you have friends already in real life, hang out with them. Have a more connection to your community in real life to help ground you a little bit more in those difficult moments.
Empowering Self-Image and Engagement
00:19:19
Speaker
Ultimately, You are in control of how you feel about yourself. Yes, things might happen that influence you in a negative way.
00:19:30
Speaker
And sometimes we have to work through those negative emotions. I have had to do that many a time in my life. But you're going to be okay. If you stayed this long, I definitely appreciate you.
00:19:44
Speaker
Naturally, if you found in enjoyment in this episode, found any value, if it resonated with you in any particular way, make sure to subscribe and to leave review. It definitely, definitely helps.
00:19:56
Speaker
Additionally, you can follow me on Instagram at yourcoachmari. I'm also on TikTok and threads. Same handle at yourcoachmari. If you are looking for support in building your self-esteem, building your self-worth, I am accepting new clients as well. And you can definitely schedule your very own discovery call with me through the link in my show notes.
00:20:16
Speaker
And until next time, keep growing. Bye.