Effects Of Social Media On Self Esteem

The Intervention/ Effects of social media on self-esteem

Social Media emerged as the new addiction for the youngsters aging from 12 to 21 years of age from the past few years (Gonzales & Hancock, 2011). Young adults from age 12 to 21 are seen to be more inclined towards social media as uses this platform to seek entertainment and build stronger social relations with their friends and other people (Kim & Lee, 2011). They soon become the victims of Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) as they are being diagnosed with this newly emerged clinical disorder.

They fall at risk to lose their mental stability and might fall into further mental health illnesses if intervention is not made on time to help them. So, this intervention will be performed on those participants who use social media for more than 10 hours daily and ends up losing self-confidence and self-esteem. We suggest that early assessment is needed to monitor and analyze their behavior retrospect and proactive measures can be taken to resolve the issues they might face with this habit.

Hypothesis: Improving at-risk student’s self-confidence using effective experiences that will result in increased self-esteem. This intervention is very much needed to make them participate in certain carefully designed measures that will bring back their damaged self-esteem. The intervention is divided into three main steps that are: initial assessment of their use of social media, Retrospection, monitoring and evaluating and the final interview.

The initial assessment will take into consideration the participants presence online and their online active activities that may include their net surfing on social networking sites, chatting, stalking others etc. (Kuss & Griffiths,2011). This step will let us know what type of actions they make which then directly puts an adverse effect on their self-esteem and they lose motivation.

The second step involves retrospection which will detect and forecast their upcoming behavior because of this over and unproductive use of social media. In this step, the participants will get aware of their over-dependence on social media and might seek help. In this case, intervention strategies will be then put into action to assist them.

The third step will incorporate the part of monitoring and evaluating of these intervention strategies. The strategies implemented on them will be monitored closely to see if the plan is effective or not. They will also be evaluated with the performance of the participants. Here, participants’ behavior will be keenly observed to investigate the effect invention has made on them. Participants will also be required to corporate equally and self-monitor themselves in the time when they are not. For example, once they go home they need to put a check on themselves and avoid their presence on social media late at night (Junco, 2012).

After the completion of the duration of the other three steps, the final interview will be taken from the participants to ask for their response after participating in the intervention process. They will be asked to list down the issues they faced during intervention so that next time they should be fixed. The intervention will also help them cope up with the issues they are facing due to the overuse of social media.

Implications for School Counselors

Professional school counselors and senior administrators could participate in providing help to the students by developing a school-wide technology policy, guidance prevention plan, and intervention that aimed at increasing students’ self-esteem. The technology policy should state clear expectations for behavior online as well as consequences for misconduct. After a review of research on the impact of social networking sites on the well-being of the students, it is clear that the guidance and intervention plans are necessary to be implemented. These interventions should focus on promoting digital citizenship by preventing cyberbullying, preventing sexual risk-taking, and encouraging the development of a healthy online identity. For students who have been involved with cyberbullying or those who might be at risk for cyberbullying, school counselors should implement intervention strategies such as cognitive therapy or counseling (Mehdizadeh, 2010).

One of the most popular intervention strategies is the creation of an anti-bullying group, which could meet during lunch or after the school day. Note that students can lead anti-bullying activism groups, but counselors or trained teachers should lead small groups of cyberbullying victims. Furthermore, peer mediators or peer counselors should not be used to mediate cases of cyberbullying, as this could send the message that the victim is equally at fault with the harasser. Finally, sex intervention programs need to be developmentally appropriate and relate to the developmental age of the students.

Health Education and Health Promotion Interventions

Some more steps are there that might be effective to prevent them from damaging their mental health care to limit the access of students on social media by engaging them in more entertaining activities at school. Usually, students start using social media frequently because they are irritated by their boring routines and want to have some fun time online (Steinfield, Ellison & Lampe, 2008). This fun time soon becomes the depressed time for them without even realizing the damage they had incurred. This is why awareness campaign should be conducted at schools about the importance of mental health.

A strict schedule should be made for them to use social media only in that time period allowed for them. Online monitoring of students must be done on a student's online presence to note his performance in case he shows depressive modes. Another input the management can put into intervention strategies are by counseling and shifting the students focus from criticism to inspiration and the concept of self-love. They should be learned how to self-love and the importance of self-love in their early years of life.

There are lots of techniques of positive psychology that can be in cooperated as in intervention regarding social media effect on self-esteem. Among them, one is Gratitude Visit that is related to well-being and happiness. It can be applied with the help of appreciation and cherish, it can have a positive impact on the life of that person also whose self-esteem is affected by social media. There are four steps that come under the gratitude visit or methodology through which it can be applied. For this technique, the person has to do her/himself own their own.

Firstly the person must think about think about those who have a positive impact on their life, or they can also think about those who have done somewhat generous for them. That person can be anyone like a friend, parent, a professor, a partner (male or female), or just about anyone else. If possible, that individual should be one whom the person can visit anytime and by this visit self-esteem regarding social media can be cooperated. If the person is not available at the moment then write a letter to the selected individual by letting them how that, how they have obstructed their life for the sake of betterment. Also, let them know how they help him/her (you) for making life better.

Then ask them to read the letter and have some meeting with him/her (you). This will be helpful to reduce the stress or depression that is created in self-esteem due to the use of social media. Beside letter meeting with that person can be more helpful. The meeting can be on a regular basis or if not try to have a get-together once a week or month. This is the way in which the technique of positive psychology can be implemented. Young adults from age 12 to 21 are seen to be more inclined towards social media as uses this platform to seek entertainment and build stronger social relations with their friends and other people. They soon become the victims of Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) as they are being diagnosed with this newly emerged clinical disorder. It is the participants’ behavior that will be keenly observed to investigate the effect invention has made on them (Soon, Brass, Heinze, & Haynes, 2008).

At the conclusion, if the intervention is carried out successfully then the students will surely regain their lost self-esteem and will be more motivated than before. They will set their goals in life and will not waste any time getting depressed by online comparison with others (Vogel et al.,2014). Limited access to social media might as well improve their grades as they will realize the harmful impact of social networking sites. This intervention can only be effective if equal efforts are put by all the parties involved in the process.

Reference

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Soon, C. S., Brass, M., Heinze, H.-J., & Haynes, J.-D. (2008). Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain. Nature Neuroscience, 543–545.

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