Having good self-esteem is incredibly important. It is by believing in ourselves and loving ourselves – without being narcissistic or arrogant of course – that we are able to spread positive energy and make positive contributions to the world and our communities. They do say that it is impossible to be loved if we don’t love ourselves, and that is very true. According to
Self esteem is central to everything you do. It affects your behaviour and thoughts. It changes how you feel about and value yourself.
Self Esteem and Facebook
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Social media plays a hugely important role in our daily lives now. With around 1 billion users, it is safe to say that pretty much everybody now has a Facebook account, by far the most popular of all social media platforms. It now seems as well that Facebook can help in boosting self esteem. If you don’t have a Facebook account, in other words, you need to get one. But how does this work? According to Yahoo! News
Our research shows that it can be a psychologically meaningful activity that supplies a sense of well-being at a relatively deep level.
The reason why this works is because, through Facebook, you connect with people that like you (if they don’t, you can remove and block them). You also like pages that have interests like yours. Through Facebook, you can feel special, important and appreciated.
Quite a number of studies have now taken place in the important psychological role social media plays. Most of us have heard of cyber bullying and worry that social media is a fantastic platform for negative things. Although this is certainly true, one of the key factors in building self esteem is positive affirmation and that is also what Facebook and social media can offer. As explained in the Manila Standard Today
Results show that those who viewed their own Facebook timelines were less defensive than those who browsed through another person’s page, indicating that looking at one’s own profile is “self-affirming” and can lower an individual’s defensive tendencies due to the confidence boost.
Self Esteem and Refusing to Apologize
We have long known that admitting you have done something wrong gives certain boosts to self esteem. Particularly when people accept our apologies, we feel even better about ourselves. However, recent research has shown that not apologizing has the exact same effects. According to a paper from the European Journal of Social Psychology
The ones who refused to apologize felt boosted feelings of integrity and were more empowered.
This research is not suggesting that people should stop apologizing, particularly not if they have actually done something wrong. However, we all know people that apologize all the time, even when they haven’t actually done anything, and it seems that these people could really benefit from censoring themselves every once in a while and no longer saying “sorry” all the time.
A Word of Warning
It is, however, important to be realistic when it comes to social media as well. As stated earlier, it is also a platform for cyber bullying. However, there is a second downside. The same study that showed that Facebook can boost self esteem also showed that it can bring other problems in its wake. Only the Huffington Post has truly picked up on this part of the study.
The researchers found that the boost in self-esteem that Facebook users felt after browsing the site can lead to a substantial decrease in self-control — both on the Internet and off. […] The drop in self-control demonstrated things like higher body-mass indexes and higher levels of credit-card debt.
It seems that what reduces the risk of these negative issues is approaching Facebook – and other social networking sites – by focusing on strong links and ties. People should, in other words, actively seek out things that will make them feel better about themselves. They should come up with a status that will get a lot of likes or positive comments. They should speak to people who they fully agree with, so they can have positive debates and have their own opinions validated.
Conquering Problems with Self Esteem
So does this mean that by signing up for Facebook and no longer saying sorry, we will all have fantastic self esteem? Not entirely. Building self esteem is a long process and conquering all of our demons that stand in the way of our self esteem is just as hard. However, it can be done and it should be done. As stated previously, it is only by having self esteem that we know we are worthy of good things in our lives. Only those with high levels of self esteem have truly fulfilling and meaningful relationships and make true positive contributions to society. Most people who have had self esteem issues and have overcome them agree that there is one piece of advice that is better than any other:
The best advice I ever received — and it’s so simple, it’s astounding — was “run your own race.
It essentially means that you can only count on yourself and when you know you can actually count on yourself, when you know you will not let yourself down no matter what, your levels of self esteem will start to rise. After a while, you will start to see that there are other people you can count on too, but that is only because they appreciate you and they appreciate you because you deserve to be appreciated. It is a long and complicated process, but anybody can get there with the right amount of will power. Don’t compare yourself to others, don’t criticize yourself where criticism isn’t due and don’t try to be someone you are not.
Self esteem is something that we all have somewhere deep inside ourselves. However, for some of us, it can be hard to let this come back out. From a psychological perspective, looking back on all the good things we have done and participating in positive action will always be the most important thing.
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