The Appearance On Social Media

Appearance on social media has become almost an obsession. We can even say that there is a whole lifestyle around it. How many times do we take a photo just to post it on our Instagram or Facebook or some other app like that?

The cell phone is a part of us. Thanks to him, we report our fabulous day to day so that others can admire us and fill our publications with likes. But what lies behind this relentless pursuit of attention and admiration? Is it a new way to seek fame? Could this behavior be derived from problems in our self-esteem?

Undoubtedly, this is a phenomenon that requires reflection. The objective will be to understand if there really is some kind of affective need behind it. Appearance on social media has become a topic of debate both at the popular level and in the scientific world.

Social networks and self-esteem

Social networks are tools that can be very useful both in professional life and in social and personal life. On the one hand, they serve to get closer to our loved ones and share our experiences with them.

We publish a photo of a special moment, write a reflection and even share a song or another we like, or we can also generate a healthy discussion. Furthermore, the same tool can also be used as an advertising medium for small and large companies, self-employed workers and emerging projects.

The problem arises when we make our appearance on social media the center of our lives, our main motivation to be. And then not only do we photograph the places we go, but we go to places specifically so that we can photograph them.

We wear the shirt of the image we created and we want to show it to the world. We do things so that others can see what we are doing. Even some people lose their lives falling from high places or buildings in an attempt to take a good selfie.

What drives us to make social media a way of life? To answer, it will be important to talk a little about self-esteem. Self-esteem, according to Massó (2013), is related to the value we think we have. It can be divided into two components:

• The awareness we have about ourselves, that is, our self-concept. That is, the traits of our identity, qualities and characteristics of our way of being.

• The second component is sentimental. It is about the appreciation and love we feel and experience for our person, our interests, beliefs, values ​​and way of thinking.

Low self-esteem influences how we relate to others. López-Villaseñor’s team (2014) ensures that people with low self-esteem experience social relationships with anxiety and fear of rejection.

Thus, we reach a key point to understand the obsessive use of social networks. Low self-esteem and fear of rejection translate, in many cases, into the urgent need to seek acceptance from others.

Appearance on social media: filling an inner void

Since the rise of Buddhist psychology, the quest to fill the inner void has been a very relevant issue. Because we feel incomplete and frustrated, we often look for happiness in external stimuli.

In the case of social networks, we seek it in the form of attention and recognition. In this way, we create a false happiness based on external opinions.

This type of happiness is fragile, among other reasons, because this eagerness to please, to make all the edges of your life seem perfect, in many cases ends up taking away the person’s identity.

We may be criticized or, simply, others may not like what we are offering. In this way, our self-esteem will be even more damaged and it will be even lower.

Another influencing factor is the volatility of the opinion of others. What pleases us today, tomorrow may not please us anymore. Thus, if one day we have many followers, it does not mean that tomorrow we will still have the same number.

What’s happening? We take our happiness and give it to others. Instead of cultivating our own happiness and taking responsibility for it, we hand it over to others to make us happy. However, in fact, our happiness depends only on ourselves.

final reflection

Not everything that shines is gold. Not everything we see on social media is a reflection of reality. People only show what they want to show. Appearance on social media is quite relative. No one will post a picture crying or feeling sick.

If we look closely, most of the photos we see are from travels, parties or events that have a certain relevance for each of us. Look what he got! Look where he went, how nice. Look how well he is… We can’t make the mistake of thinking that other people can be happy and well 24/7.

Phrases like “Wow, my friend is doing well!” or “Guys, this friend of mine doesn’t stop doing interesting things” are heard very often. However, if we were in fact present in the daily lives of these people, we would certainly discover that he is not very different from ours.

Everyone has moments of sadness and moments of joy. This tells us that we shouldn’t believe everything we see. Also, when we see someone in a happy moment, we should be happy for that person.

To conclude, we can emphasize that our happiness is in our hands. In this way, we cannot let it fall into the hands of other people’s opinions and depend on the admiration of others.

On the other hand, when looking for references, we shouldn’t look at social networks, because maybe you’ll come out worse than you entered. A world where negative emotions do not exist cannot be considered real.