Social Networking Sites Analysis

In this day and age, interaction has become very important especially after the emergence of web 2.0. It has led to globalization, millions of people have come together to interact and socialize with one another in order to relieve stress, entertain themselves and talk to people with whom they share similar interests. As much as it sounds simple and fun, it does seem to have its set of drawbacks. Exposure to a lot of these Social Networking Sites (SNS) has caused psychological problems amongst the teenagers as they’re the heavy users for this medium. In this paper, I’ll be talking about social networking sites, what are some of the fundamental features of these sites, their target audience and how they have managed to prove itself to be problematic

It also correlates with how one feels. They feel satisfied with their lives, the more likes one gets the more important one feels. These ‘likes’ have become a source of self-worth. (Kahneman, Krueger, & Alan, 2006). Therefore, sharing pictures of all the adventurous things one has done for example, to boost self –esteem, to show the world that ‘we are having fun’. One of the common effect social media has on its user is described in Reduction Hypothesis. Great amount of time spent of these forums leads to feeling lonely and sad. With all the interesting posts appearing constantly on the homepage, one feels depressed. Relationship with real friends and family members starts to get affected. Social networking sites have a bad impact on psychological well-being of an individual (Valkenburg & Peter,

Which has caused to blur the lines between personal identity and social identity. Each individual therefore, strives to have a positive identity on these forums. The drawback here is that, it affects people’s self-esteem. People value themselves according to their online profiles. It has two extreme reactions, either the user becomes confident and bold, the medium becomes the source of their high self-esteem or it completely shatters it. User thinks lowly of themselves which may even result in depression and anxiety (Hoggs & Abrams, 1990). The warranting theory suggests that people on social media are judged by their profiles, they are evaluated on the basis of their looks and the company they keep (Walther, Van Der Heide, Kim, Westerman, & Tong,