Impact of Social Media on Relationships and Self-estimation

Social media has been found to be a significant factor in the higher levels of loneliness in the generation of today, higher levels of anxiety, envy, narcissism, depression and most of all the decreased social skills in the frequent users. However, these adverse effects are difficult to tell in the social media as the narratives that are portrayed and shared by the users are usually the celebratory and the positive ones. Therefore, the social media feeds individuals with the other users’ reels and makes them compare themselves to these other people’s reels, which has a significant yet adverse impact on both the self-esteem as well as the relationship in the users’ lives. This paper examines these impacts and shows the adversity of social media regarding relationship and self-esteem. Firstly, research has often determined that relationships are essential and valuable.

Essentially, positive relationships tend to protect individuals from the various vicissitudes of life, predict longer lives than other aspects like education, even genes, IQ, as well as social classes. Furthermore, these positive relationships assist in delaying the physical as well as the mental decline in the body of the partakers of the relationship in question. A positive relationship is the most significant factor in the lengthening of an individual’s life with research suggesting an approximated three more years of life to those in such relationships.

Besides, it helps in dealing with stress, which leads to faster recovery from various disorders such as the stress disorder, anxiety disorders as well as the bipolar disorders that are brought by the strenuous as well as the traumatic experiences through which an individual may go in the daily life. Further, the value of relationships is also depicted in its impact on improving and maintaining a person’s good health. Secondly, the excessive use of social media results in the epidemic of loneliness and social isolation can cause significant health issues. Notably, the constant use of social media such as the smartphones draw the users away from socialization, making it difficult for them to build and retain friends who are both genuine and are in their real life. Social media makes users like their virtual friends who are unable to help when the individual needs help, which leads to loneliness. The persistent use of social media will lead to persistent loneliness as well as social isolation that significantly increases both the persistent of certain disorders as well as stresses and result in premature death.

For instance, pervasive and persistent loneliness has been associated with the lack of sleep, cardiovascular problems, reduced abilities, as well as various mental health including anxiety and suicidality that directly touches an individual’s health life and well-being. Thirdly, social media and digitalization disconnect us from the real world. The consistent use of social media has proved to be so addictive, and in as much as we have various connections with the virtual friends, the users of social media lose the real and close friends, family or the real life. Notably, instead of meeting and sharing various experiences and comforting one another when in need, individuals have put social media the priority. For instance, just before a meeting can begin in an organization, it is always proper for the workers to catch up, which is rarely done today because of the smartphones to which everyone is busy. The fact that the phones and the televisions take much of the time besides work only means that there is no time to hang out with friends and explore the real world.

Fourthly, families and communities are drifting apart due to political and ethnic and religious beliefs. Instead of coming together and supporting one another both emotionally and financially when the need arises, the families have been ripped apart by the families as well as the communities because of their differences in the ethnicity and the political movements that they support. Furthermore, social media has not only been used in the selling of these political parties that bring division, but it has also been used by the evil individuals to spread rumors as well as hurting lies that have compelled the families as well as communities to go to war with each other.

Lastly, people experience problems differently based on their social wealth. For instance, a sociable individual will get over stress faster than a socially poor individual because the former gets to talk about the problems and fail to get the solution but will undoubtedly get encouragements that will take the individual through the problem. However, it is different for the socially poor because there is none to share the issues with, there could be a development of the feeling of loneliness that will persist and impact the individual’s life adversely.

Further, being in a problem and having none to share with may lead to the suicidal thoughts and all are a result of the exercise use of social media. In conclusion, the adverse impact of the social media on both the self-esteem as well as the relationships is proved to include the destruction of the relationships are otherwise essential and valuable, the reinforcement of epidemic of loneliness and social isolation that can cause significant health issues, the disconnection from the real world, the drifting of both the families and communities apart due to political and ethnic and religious beliefs, and the difference in problem experiencing depending on the social wealth of the individual that results from the way the person uses social media.