Influence of Social Media Sites on Mental Health and Self-Esteem

Increased Prevalence of Social Media Sites over the Past Decade

In 2004, the world of social media as we know it today was changed forever. Facebook was first created an entire decade ago with similar social media platforms such as MySpace, Twitter, and Instagram being created ever since. Similarly, phrases such as "cyber-bullying" were not used or even a thing over a decade ago. However, in today's world social media and cyber-bullying are both intertwined with society and how we communicate with one another over the Internet. Facebook, the biggest social media website of them all, has over a billion users and the amount of users will only continue to grow. The scope and influence of social media should be taken seriously with regards to mental health and the prosperity of its users.

Correlation between Social Media and Symptoms of Depression

Currently there is much debate as to whether or not there is concrete evidence with regards to any correlations between social media websites and depression. This is mostly because social media is so new and used in so many different ways that it is tough to scientifically study something so subjective. Although, researchers do agree that depressive symptoms and factors are easier to identify through social media outlets. Users who have depression issues typically take to social media in order to express their emotions. Therefore, even though we cannot definitively say that social media leads to depression symptoms in some users, researchers can agree that symptoms of depression are more easily identifiable on social media websites.

How Social Networks Negatively affects Users Self-Esteem

In order to analyze the relationship between social media and self-esteem, we first must define what exactly self-esteem is for our study. For our purposes, self-esteem is the degree of which one approves, values, or likes ones self. With that in mind, researchers found an overwhelmingly negative response to social media websites. The belief as to why that is the case is because social media is self-promotional and, in some cases, narcissistic at its core. The appearance of being cool and having a great life is almost more important than actually having those things because your reputation is based upon your social media reputation nowadays. Based upon the research conducted, social media has a negative affect on self-esteem in most cases so the question to ask now is: how do we change social media to make it a more positive environment for its users?

Similar to Drugs, Social Media can be Addictive

A study conducted analyzed the affects of social media on the brain and what happens when social media usage is taken away. Interestingly enough, subjects of the study experienced withdrawal symptoms when having to eliminate social media usage. Chronic users of social media exhibited symptoms that resembled that of alcohol and nicotine abusers. Addiction to social media is a real problem especially considering the adverse affects I covered above. Social media seems to provide more issues than actual positives for its users today however, that's not to say that it can improve in the future.

Digital News Participation is Dependent on Media Device

by Bradley Keith 31 and Dion Wiley 66

Email and Social Media Encourage Digital Participation

The United States is currently ranked 4th on the global list of overall news participation. 35% of these users use email and social media in order to share these news stories. Through the use of various applications and news websites, we are now able to share more personalized information than ever before. Applications such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube allow us to share news that we consider interesting or relevant to our lives with all the people we are connected to on those particular social media sites. On the other hand, email is a more personal way of sharing news by selecting each person you want to share the news with individually. These various platforms have made digital participation in sharing news both easier and more prevalent.

Facebook is Still the Most Used and Important Social Media Website

Contrary to popular opinion, Facebook is not becoming out-of-date or less important thanks to the rise in other social media websites such as Twitter or Instagram. As shown in the image above, Facebook continues to be the top social media site to share news and interact with other people regarding that news. Even though Twitter has become increasingly more popular with their quick way of sharing information with under 140 characters, continued dialogue between people about news stories seems to be easier on Facebook with no character limitations. The increased prevalence of different social media sites allows people to share information in many different ways. However, this image shows that people's first choice to share that information is still Facebook.

Most People Use Mobile Devices to Access these Sites to Digitally Participate

17% of people use their mobile devices in order to interact with the news whether it is through social media, email, etc. This shows that in an increasingly busy and instant digital world, most people rely on their phone in order to view and interact with the news. This should not be a surprise considering the rise of smartphones and how important they have become in people's everyday lives. If someone wants to view something quickly, such as the news, they can look it up on either an app or Internet on their smartphone as opposed to pulling out their laptop. In a growing digital and mobile world, it makes sense that most people would access this information through their phones (mobile devices).

Specifically, People are Using Apple Products the Most to Access this Information

When it comes to devices being used to access news and digitally participate, Apple dominates the market. Smartphone users are about the same when it comes to Apple versus it's competitors. However, Apple owns the tablet market commanding most of the news and digital participation outflow. This signifies that the iPad is the most popular form of digital participation in the tablet market which comes in second to the mobile phone market with regards to digital participation. Regardless, Apple is a key player due to the amount of people using their devices to digitally participate with the news today.

David's Definition of "Good" Interactivity

listen to ‘David's Definition of "Good" Interactivity’ on audioBoom

Managers and Their Approaches Towards Big Data Personalization

After researching some companies approaches towards big data personalization I discovered some interesting statistics. I created the graph above in order to better show you my findings with regards to this matter. It shows that almost half of the business managers polled in this particular survey don't just want to add online customer data to their profiles but also believe that it is important to the success of their business to do so. However, four out of every ten do not target any customer segment using personalization and even fewer are even aware which customers to focus their marketing on. With all that in mind, there seems to be a disconnect between these managers and their general approach towards personalization. In order to fully utilize the benefits that they believe personalization has, these managers need to take the appropriate measures and dedicate more of their time to do so.