Self-esteem allows us to feel respect, love, and trust in ourselves because we accept our strengths and abilities. Self-esteem is how we embrace who we are, how we perceive ourselves, and value ourselves. However, social media significantly impacts our self-esteem and mental health, affecting our confidence, self-worth, encompassing beliefs, and morals.

Social media has a large impact on how we view ourselves. Social media such as TikTok and Instagram have increased the use of editing and filters on photos and videos among users. Photo and video editing represents a process that can facilitate adjustments through the manipulation of images to align better with this perceived ideal of beauty. Today, we are constantly confronted with highly edited pictures on social media networks, therefore changing and affecting the perception of beauty by raising standards. This tends to harm body satisfaction and appearance. Now, how does this relate to self-esteem? And what happens when we compare ourselves to what’s on social media?

Photo editing can encourage individuals to view their body as an object, which is associated with risks of depression, eating disorders, and body shaming. As we engage more in using filters and photo editing, we focus more on our appearance. When engaging in these, we are anticipating others’ reactions and looking at ourselves from an outsider’s perspective. This then increases risk factors for self-objectification. Self-objectification is known as the act of internalizing someone else’s perspective on us. This involves having a perspective towards our body, meaning, when we self-objectify, we are thinking about how our bodies might look to others. Self-objectification is also associated with body shame, depression, eating disorders, and an overall lower well-being. Engaging in photo editing and the use of filters activates us to compare our physical appearance to others and to self-objectify. When our self-esteem is low, we gravitate more to physical comparisons and seek more reassurance from others compared to those with higher self-esteem.

Social media and excessive use of social media can negatively impact our relationships with others, life satisfaction, mental health, and self-esteem. There is a large connection between social media and self-esteem levels, leading to lower self-esteem with more social media usage. When we have lower self-esteem, we tend to internalize societal images of being thin, and we tend to lean more towards comparing our physical appearance more often. We are also more likely to engage in comparison to others and think we aren’t meeting society’s beauty standards.

When we think of ourselves negatively, we anticipate that others are negatively evaluating us. When our self-esteem is low, this can lead to a fear of negative evaluation and increased social anxiety. In addition, negative evaluation is attributed to photo editing through social media. Our self-esteem plays an important role in our overall well-being. When we have higher self-esteem and a positive evaluation of ourselves, we tend to participate less in the use of filters and photo editing. When our self-esteem is high, external opinions affect us less, and we have higher self- assuredness. Additionally, higher self-esteem allows us to accept our physical appearance, increasing our confidence.

So, how do we create a healthier relationship with social media and increase our self-esteem?

1. Be More Intentional with Your Use of Social Media

Engage with social media for a purpose instead of mindlessly scrolling, specifically during your morning and nighttime routines. When we pick up our phones first thing in the morning, we set a negative tone for the beginning of our day. When we are on our phones late at night, this negatively impacts our sleep. Be more intentional with your phone and the use of social media, finding more appropriate times to be on social media and what your purpose is for using it.

2. Unfollow, Block, or Mute People & Accounts

Set boundaries around who you follow. Remove accounts from your social media that might be influencing your physical or mental health negatively. This can help decrease anxiety, stress, and your comparison to others. Follow people who aren’t using filters or engaging in photo editing. Following more positive and impactful pages can help create a more optimistic outlook, and this can also help create and promote more body positivity!

3. Create Time Limits

When we are highly active on social media and are spending a significant amount of time on socials, we have higher rates of anxiety, lower self-esteem, and feel lonelier. Creating specific time limits for daily use or time limits for specific apps, will help us have an overall higher well-being, have fewer depressive symptoms, and reduce feelings of sadness.

Using the Focus feature on an iPhone device can allow you to minimize distractions and concentrate by customizing notifications for work, sleep, and personal time.
Using the Screen Time feature on an iPhone device can also allow you to limit your time for specific apps or notifications.
Using the Digital Wellbeing and Parental Control feature on your Samsung can help set limits for app usage and set screen time limits.

4. Mindful Downtime

Use Using social media when we have downtime is not a bad or negative thing. However, when we aren’t using it mindfully, it can take over the daily tasks that need to get done. We can also think of other hobbies or activities, such as journaling, meditation, painting, drawing, yoga, or going on a walk, that we can do instead of scrolling through social media or even doing these after we’ve set our time limit!

If you are finding challenges with your self-esteem or challenges with the use and impacts of social media, know that you are not alone! Therapy for self-esteem and body image can help you rise above your challenges and help you move towards a life that is guided by your values and beliefs.

References

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10309264/ https://bmcpsychology.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40359-023-01143-0 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305120955182 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11092376/

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