Abstract of the effects of social media
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According to O’Keeffe, Clarke-Pearson, and others (2011) report, it talks about social media and how it has affected adolescents and also children. It further points out that the merits of using social media are that it facilitates the engagement of societal issues and provides access to valuable information. However, it also exposes the young generation to online harassment and cyberbullying, which results in diminishing the self-esteem of young people. Besides, Patchin and Hinduja (2010) point out that addiction to social media affects the development of education among young users. We can conclude that social networking sites affect many youth’s self-esteem and also their reading habits. One of the primary reasons why social media causes low self –esteem and lousy reading habits consecutively among young people is the issue of comparison and also getting addicted to the social media platform.
Hawi and Samaha (2017) further supported the investigation. They concluded that when young people compare themselves to those who post their ‘perfect lives ‘on social media, they tend to develop low self-esteem. Patchin and Hinduja (2010) add that spending most of the time on social causes one to develop slow reading habits, which eventually grows to poor reading habits. Thus despite social media having some positive effects, it also has adverse effects such as the gradual development of low self-esteem and poor studying habits among young people. On the contrary, De Choudhury, Counts, and Horvitz (2013) suggest that personality also has an essential role in determining the adverse effects of social networking sites. He further says that young people who highly regard themselves in comparison to others are more likely to have positive reinforcement, provided by social media. They tend to portray narcissistic tendencies and clinical narcissism, which prevents them from experiencing negative effects such as low self-esteem and depression.
Although many researchers have carried out many kinds of research on the consequences of using social networking sites among the young generation, there is still needs further research to be done. Explicitly how reading habits of most youth and low self- esteem links to social media links. Thus the primary reason for the research proposal. Social media has grown since the beginning of the 21st century. It has majorly grown to be a source of entertainment where people can play games, communicate with friends, and post pictures. Making lots of people, especially the youth, get addicted to the social media platform. Social media has its benefits and drawbacks. The merits of using social media are that it has created a virtual society. A virtual society in that most people can interact, share real-time information in different locations, and mingle with different people worldwide. On the other hand, it has led to some negative aspects, especially to the youth. When the youth get addicted to social media, they negatively affect other aspects of their life, such as their habits of reading and also their esteem. It has caused a lot of low-self-esteem among the youth because most people fake their living habits on the internet to expose how they have a perfect life. When young people compare their lives with those who post their “perfect life” on social media, it causes low-self-esteem. Also, the youth tend to occupy most hours of the day on social networking sites, thus having less time on books. This research will help us compare the effects between those who spend less time on social networking sites and those who devote most of their day to social media in connection to self-esteem and reading behaviors. The hypothesis of the research will be; Young people who use more than 5hours/day on social media platforms tend to read less than one educational/narrative book for five months; Young people who use few minutes on social networking each day study more than a book monthly. Qualitative method is the best method to use since the research is a complex subject that has a non-quantifiable variable. The research will be conducted for four weeks, where two weeks will be used to collect data, one week for enrolling and ascertain the research sample, and the remaining one week will be used to analyze the data, which will be collected. The sample study used is 146 undergraduate female students from various locations across the country and use one or more social networking sites. Ethnic groups of the selected undergraduates were not specific. Also, there is an assumption that undergraduates more often use networking platforms. Information will be collected by filling out open-ended questionnaires, which will be done using the internet, and also physical forms will be given. The questions will mostly be based on usage and addiction to social media platforms. Besides, the questions will focus on the general addictive usage of social media instead of focusing on one media and also increasing the chances of ways to identify the interrelation between addiction to social networking platforms and self-esteem. From the consistency and even predictions of the demographic make-up, the conclusion is; the belief that too much time spent on the social media networks cause’s narcissist tendencies and behaviors, thus the necessity to fuel one’s ego many girls put many efforts in negatively evaluating themselves. Also, the null hypothesis stated that the undergraduates who spend more than five hours a day on social media read fewer books in more than four months. The (H1) hypothesis shows that the undergraduates who spent less time a day on social media sites tend to study more than one book monthly. Thus, it is recommended that young people avoid negative effects such as low self-esteem, by limiting their time on social media, and seeking guidance if they experience depression and low self-esteem. Besides, the youth should also try as much as possible to spend more time reading books than researching using online sites. This will help improve their reading habits. In conclusion, the research has helped get more information concerning the effects of social media on the youth’s esteem and also studying behaviors. It has also provided alternative solutions to help solve the problem. Thus the solutions provided will help in making the social media environment a better place.
References
O’Keeffe, G. S., & Clarke-Pearson, K. (2011). The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families. Pediatrics, 127(4), 800-804.
Patchin, J. W., & Hinduja, S. (2010). Cyberbullying and self‐esteem. Journal of school health, 80(12), 614-621.
Hawi, N. S., & Samaha, M. (2017). The relations among social media addiction, self-esteem, and life satisfaction in university students. Social Science Computer Review, 35(5), 576-586.
De Choudhury, M., Gamon, M., Counts, S., & Horvitz, E. (2013, June). Predicting depression via social media. In Seventh International AAAI conference on weblogs and social media.