Upon logging online to any social media site, a person is immediately bombarded with pictures, videos, and statuses intended to grab their attention. With a click of a button, one can find him or herself scrolling through an entire picture album of their coworker vacationing in the Bahamas. With another click one can pull up a video of their friend in a front seat at one of the best shows in town. In the past decade, the use of social media has grown exponentially; millions of people are on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on a daily basis, wasting multiple hours scrolling. According to research done by Andrew Perrin at the Pew Research Center, "nearly two-thirds of the American adults (65%) of the population uses social networking sites," (Perrin, Social Media Usage 2005-2015). Social Media has impacted the world as a whole as well but it has also impacted individuals in the ways that they view themselves and how they portray themselves to others. The idea of self-image, how one thinks of him or herself, is becoming associated more with negativity than positivity and is becoming a reoccurring issue due to the excessive use of social media. The increased use of social media is encouraging people to change how they look and promoting becoming someone they are not.

The idea of social media is to share aspects of one's life with the entire world through pictures, videos, and statuses. However, the things that are posted regularly are creating a competitive atmosphere of who's life is better. This has formed a negative spin on social media because it has formed a contest between some people. For those who do not necessarily live the most exuberant lifestyle, they are left feeling rather pathetic in comparison to their friends. Those same people also feel the need to change what they are doing in their own lives to be more like the people they see online. Researcher, Mitja D. Back, recently proposed a new hypothesis that "profiles are used to create and communicate idealized selves" (Back 372). This hypothesis is known as the idealized virtual-identity hypothesis and asserts that "profile owners display idealized characteristics that do not reflect their actual personalities" (Back 372). Before social media became so popular face-to-face interaction was how people became acquainted with each other; however, the introduction of social media introduces the idea that people you interact with online could be a complete stranger. The concept of being someone one is not and trying to portray oneself as someone different has become a huge issue on social media. Not only is there the safety aspect of not knowing necessarily who one could be talking to, but the aspect of losing one's own identity, trying to be someone else. A person should be content with who they are and the type of person they are but with the tools to compare him or herself to others this concept has been lost for some. Social media is encouraging some people to not be his or herself and promoting looking to others happiness to determine their own. 

One person's own posts can negatively affect their own self-image not just the posts of other people. What some people do not realize is that the things posted on social media and the internet are there forever. One can delete it off their own specific page but somewhere in the world of the internet it still exists. There are ways to make this information hard to find, but regardless, it is still available to the public eye if it is on the internet. That being said, individuals hurt their own self-image based off of what they post. Posts that include profanity and inappropriate images can create a negative opinion about a person. Not only do these posts represent the individual in a negative manner but they can also influence their potential to get into college and getting a job in the future. Kaplan Test Prep, an organization that aids K-12 students in preparing for a college education, conducted a study that reviewed the percentage of colleges around the United States that viewed a prospective student's social media profiles. Of the 381 college admissions officers that participated in the study "30 percent of the admissions officers said they had discovered information online that had negatively affected an applicant's prospects" (Singer).  The issue of negative representation of an individual due to their posts is more common in younger people because as they grow up they believe that they can say and do whatever they like without any repercussions. Social media has become their safe haven to share their opinions on certain situations without there being an adult there to criticize or regulate what they say. However, the majority of teenagers do not keep in mind that anyone has access to what they post and it can hurt them in the long run if worded poorly or construed in a negative way as shown in the Kaplan study. Adults, as well, still have to worry about this because a majority of companies monitor their employees' profiles. CNN News did a story on a Denver math teacher who was initially put on administrative leave but in the end was fired because of her "very controversial Twitter account that the school she worked for discovered discussing her opinions of her students and her 'passion' for smoking marijuana" (Broderick and Grinberg). Even when interviewing potential employees, employers tend to view their social media profiles to gain a better judgment of their potential employee's character. Because social media has become so popular in the past ten years profiles have become a huge way to judge a person's morals and beliefs. One wrong thing on a profile can create a negative image for the person as a whole. 

Social media has become a platform for everyone to express themselves. Not only do everyday people use social media, but celebrities, athletes, and models use it as well. In fact, many of these "non-average" human beings are instructed by agents and managers to create an image of him or herself on these platforms that millions and millions of people see regularly. Their profiles are often used to promote certain products from various companies that advertise a "better" life or even a life similar to the celebrity's. Profiles like these have become a huge factor in the negative vibe that the general public has about social media because these profiles display unrealistic images of how life should be. Profiles of models, in particular, are filled with photo shopped images of themselves that supposedly give the public the ideal way to look. The majority of these posts are encouraging self-harm to their audiences' bodies because of how unrealistic and impossible it is to reach the ideal goals being promoted in each post. For example, a girl by the name of Essena O'Neill created her social media empire in a matter of years. As time went on and her success as an online celebrity grew she was given more opportunities to promote different products and eventually began making a steady income. However, after years of faking to her fans how amazing her life was she expressed how unhappy she truly was. After announcing she was quitting social media she proceeded to go back through every Instagram post she had and change the captions to reveal the truth. For example, "her 'fitspo' pictures revealed the unhealthy habits she had to gain the "perfect" bod" (McNeal). Her desire to be liked by others drove her to become someone she was not and even more so putting herself at risk of anorexia as she strived to reach what she thought was an ideal self. This is just one of several accounts where the amount of followers one had or the amount of likes one had on their pictures influenced an unhealthy lifestyle. These unhealthy lifestyles are resulting in higher numbers of eating disorders which is becoming an even bigger issue in society nowadays because of photo shopped images on social media profiles. A study conducted by the International Journal of Eating Disorders observed the use of photo shop and the act of taking selfies. This study showed that "higher levels of body-related and eating concerns were found for participants engaging in more social media-related self-photo activities" (McClean 1137). Many of the adolescent girls observed claimed that they were influenced by the profiles of celebrities and the desire to be just like them. However, even the average person can view these same profiles and gain the mentality that this is what they need to look like and be like, and some will go to extremes to make it happen. Created by the new social norm, the "ideal" way to be is influencing different people to express him or herself in similar ways and promoting extreme measures to be taken to reach the "ideal" self. 

The amount of time an average person spends on social media a day exceeds a couple of hours. A poll was taken by the Global Web Index stating that "an average person spends about six hours online and of those six hours two hours are spent on social media, alone" (Mander, Daily time spent on social media rises to 1.72 hours). Because it is so easily accessible on smart phones, people can scroll through any website, effortlessly. A lazy atmosphere is created with the amount of time people waste looking at what everyone else is doing on their profiles. Social media has taken over the lives of majority of the population because nowadays sitting and scrolling is all that occurs. This well renown past time is influencing a very unhealthy lifestyle. Before social media became so popular people used to have face to face conversations; people actually went outside and enjoyed themselves. Now, everything is online and there is no need to leave the comforts of ones' home to interact with people. All the motivation to go outside and enjoy the fresh air is gone because some people would rather sit on Facebook for hours on end. Social media has taken away the need for human contact and negatively impacted society as a whole. 

Even though social media has made communication easier it has negative effects on self-image which is a huge issue in today's society. Social media has become a medium where people are pressured to live up to an unrealistic standard of how they should look and how they should act. Not only is this certain image that people wish to have causing them harm to others but it is harming his or herself, as well. Over the past decade, social media has become a huge presence in our lives and has changed society into believing unrealistic images of ourselves are ideal. Without social media the idea of self-image would not be nearly as impacted and not as much of an issue. 

