The average person spends around 11 hours a day on social media. Although social media is fun and entertaining, it can damage someone with low self-esteem even more. Through research, self-esteem has been directly correlated with a variety of negative consequences such as: having a negative attitude, being unhappy, being angry, unmotivated, depressed, having poor self-image, and having poor communication skills. When having low self- esteem, people tend on trying to not make mistakes while people with high self-esteem focus on getting better at everything they do (McLeod). While social media can be good for some people, for those with low self-esteem it is not because of the social comparison of themselves and the image it produces in one's mind of how they should look. Social comparison has become a major issue with the use of social media. A simple way to help solve this issue is to use social media less or only use it in a positive manner to interact with others. If this is done then there will be less social comparison and a better use of social media. 

While researching this problem I found that social comparison kept being brought up along with social media and self-esteem. I then compared the idea of social comparison to how the people around me and how we view ourselves through social media. When doing this I found that everyone compares themselves to someone who they think has a better life or a better look than them on social media. This is a very serious issue that I have seen in person with one of my roommates. On one of the very popular social medias, Instagram, my roommate paid for more likes for some of her pictures. This is a prime example of someone with low self-esteem being affected by social media and the social comparison that comes with it. Because she paid to have more likes on her pictures, it became noticeable that she only paid for likes on the pictures that were just of her. The problem with this is that she did not buy the likes on all of her pictures so it became very obvious that something was different with those certain pictures. Having more likes on your pictures in this generation means you are popular and I believe that appearing more popular is what she was trying to accomplish by purchasing the likes. I decided to pay more attention to my roommate's use of social media and what she posts to compare to the research I found. What she posts and how she acts in real life are completely different. This has become common on social media as Vogel explains, "Social Networking Sites provide the perfect platform for meticulous self-presentation. Users can selectively allow content onto their profiles, post pictures, and describe themselves in ways that best represent their ideal self-views" (Vogel 1). With this in mind I was able to see a huge difference in the way she was through social media and how she truly acts in real life.

Having low self-esteem can be very damaging to the way a person interacts with others. The academic journal "Low Self- Esteem", explained that self-esteem is directly correlated with a variety of negative consequences as listed above. One of the main consequences that come along with social media and ones self-esteem is the focus they have. With the lower self-esteem they will focus solely on not making any mistakes. Because they focus so much on not making mistakes, those people end up making a bigger mistake and a bigger problem out of something very minor. While the people with a higher self-esteem tend to focus on getting better at each thing they do and do not worry about making mistakes at all. The difference in the two are a very important factor in how each person will use social media and interact with others. Someone with high self-esteem will have an advantage on how to use social media to positively affect them because they already are not focusing on the negatives and are not scared to make mistakes. Along with social media and self-esteem, social comparison is a big problem that comes with those. People with low self-esteem have a tendency to compare themselves to those they think are better on social media. This causes a big issue with someone with low self-esteem and the way they truly see themselves. They believe that the person they are comparing with is way better in all aspects just because of what they look like and post on social media.

Multiple studies have been done on people between the ages of 13 and 26 on the use of social media and how it truly affects each individual differently. These studies have been able to prove that social media does indeed have a negative effect on people with low self-esteem. A great example of this is a 2014 academic article called "Social Comparison, Social Media, And Self-Esteem" written about a study done on undergraduates and their Facebook use. Eckles states, "Dovetailing with and uniting these prior studies, our results replicate those of Chou and Edge (2012) by  nding that people explicitly report a greater degree of upward than downward social comparisons via social media and extend their results by revealing that the net effect of making largely upward comparisons is harmful for self-esteem" (Eckles 216). Meaning that through the use of social media, people have an increased use of social comparison which had negative effects on the studies sample for those with low self-esteem. This directly correlates with my personal experience with my roommate. She clearly did not feel good enough about herself with the amount of likes she was getting, she was comparing the amount of likes she gets to others which is a negative affect from using social media. 

The article, "Effects of Self-presentation and Social Media Use in Attainment of Beauty Ideals|Britt|Studies in Media and Communication" saw very similar results that I did but had a different idea of the effect that comes with it. The author, Rebecca Britt, agrees with the idea that people change on social media to make their lives seem better than what they are. But, she believes this is a positive effect on that person's self-esteem. Her reasoning is, "The influence of self-presentation and TPB variables may impact self-esteem. Prior research indicates that CMC becomes more personal over time because interactions increase, and perceptions of fellow communicators are positively skewed (Walther, 1996). This is interesting when we think of beauty related social media, because beauty products change over time, and so does the coverage of products, tutorials and ideas that people share" (Britt 82). I see the idea that she is trying to prove with her study. She believes that because the person with low self-esteem is making their life seem better through social media that they also believe that in real life. This may be true for some people but it cannot be true for everyone. This ties back to my roommate and how she tried to make her life seem better through social media but because she does not act like that when she is not on social media then Britt's idea cannot be true.

Another example that I have seen on a day to day basis is someone with low self-esteem posting negative comments on social media. When a friend does this it has the ability for you to believe those comments are true and negatively affect you just as much as them. "According to a new study, set to be published in the journal Psychological Science, those with low self-esteem often bombard friends with negative messages about their lives, making themselves less likeable" (Moscaritolo). This article was very helpful because at first the researchers believed that social media would be very good for relationships and a place for people to come together. After doing research they found that, "this was often not the case for those with a low self-esteem. In reality, those who think poorly of themselves "behave counter-productively" on the popular social media sites by posting negative messages that bother friends" (Moscaritolo). I found this to be completely true during my research going through the posts that people will post behind a computer screen on their social medias. I found that there were many people who would post negative comments on someone's picture or post just to bother the person who posted it. 

If these people with low self-esteem were to lessen the time that they spend on social media, they would also lessen the time they have to socially compare themselves with others. 

