Social Media. It has become an integral part of our everyday lives. We will subconsciously check our phones out of boredom to see what our peers are up to. According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Americans spend 40 minutes a day on Facebook. So what psychological effects does all this browsing of social media have? One of effects I’d like to elaborate on would be one’s sense of self-worth.

As an adolescent, I was first exposed to it through Myspace. When I first joined Myspace, I thought it was the greatest thing in the world. It was a great way to connect with those around me. You could take surveys that all your friends could see. You could have a hierarchy of friends in order to passive-aggressively let others know if they were on your bad side that week or you could determine how much of a chance you had with that girl that you liked by how high up you were on her friends list. The option was also there to have a song play every time someone visited your profile. What better way to show your teenage angst than to have a Linkin Park song play when someone checked out your profile.

Then along came Facebook. It soon replaced Myspace as the top social media website on the market. At my school, you weren’t cool unless you had a Facebook page. You could poke/chat up your friends, write on their wall, post pictures of yourself, list your interests, and even organize events. At first, it was great. It was a profile of you that gave you a sense of individualism. It was also cool that you could see what everyone else was up to. However, as time passed, my opinion on this outlet of social media began to change.

Over time, I felt like the notion of individualism began to fade from existence on Facebook. People were no longer using it as an outlet to express themselves. It became a means in order to obtain self-validation. The more “likes” that one of your posts had, the more socially valuable you were considered. “Likes” essentially became a piece social currency. The popular kids would have 50+ likes on a status while the less popular kids would get about 4 or less. My newsfeed soon became littered with posts of people buying something extravagant or posing at some exotic vacation spot in order to demonstrate their social worth. I too am also guilty of doing this. Soon the posts of peoples ideas or creative works began to dwindle while the “high value” posts began to reign supreme. If you’re looking at Facebook 40 minutes a day, every day, you’re self-worth is going to be affected from seeing all these posts about others having such amazing events taking place. Imagine the toll it takes on someone who suffers from depression.

My transition to college was not an easy one. I went from a small town with a tight knit group of friends to a college town where I hardly knew anyone. Luckily my roommate was a friend of mine from home which helped maintain my sanity. It was difficult for me to make friends because I’m quite an introverted person. I soon fell into a depression which tends to linger with me to this very day. Since I wasn’t out and about a lot, I spent a lot of my time browsing Facebook. I would constantly see posts of my friends from High School having a great time out at parties. My life began to consist of: wake up, facebook, class, facebook, go home, facebook, go to bed. After a while it began to take a toll on me. My self-worth had diminished nearly completely. I wasn’t the person that was out having a good time at the club so I viewed myself as inadequate.

I don’t think I’m the only person that has had this experience. Fortunately, I was able to break the cycle. Hopefully, I can help others break this cycle as well. If you are able to delete Facebook, then great! However, for me it’s hard to get rid of since it still proves to be a valuable networking tool and a nice way to stay in touch with others. Whats important to keep in mind is that what you are viewing on your newsfeed are other people’s highlight reel. If you were to look at other people’s Facebook profile, most likely they would seem like the happiest person in the world with no shortcomings whatsoever. This is a ludicrous sentiment. It’s important to keep in mind that everyone’s life has a side which you’re not seeing. For example, someone may be struggling with crippling debt but they’re probably not going to post that on their profile. Now don’t misinterpret me by thinking that you should celebrate other people’s downfalls. I’m more or less stating that you should be aware that not everyone is happy as they say they are online.