PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL MEDIA
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PERSONALITY PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIAL MEDIA
Personality psychology, as a branch of psychology, deals with the study of personality and its variation from individual to individual. It is a scientific study whose main aim is to show how people are individually different due to psychological forces. The subject seeks to understand a person’s major psychological patterns and how they are shown in an individual’s life. Personality psychologists conduct scientific research pertaining to personality, teach about a character (usually at the college and university level) and participate in the broader subject of psychology (Nettle et al., 2020). It mostly entails investigation of human nature and psychological similarities between individuals.
What Is the Meaning of Social Media? Social media is a computer-based technology that helpsin the sharing of ideas, thoughts, and information through the construction of virtual networks and communities. By design, social media is internet-based and gives users a quick electronic communication of the content. Some Content includes personal information, document, videos, and photos (Nettle et al., 2020). The users engage with social media through computer, tablet or even smartphone via web-based software or web application, mostly utilizing it for messaging.
Many people around the world develop behavior or personality issues due to social media. If you’re experiencing behavior or personality issues due to social media, you aren’t alone. Most individuals spend too much time on social media. Students enrolled in college need time to take care of their responsibilities. Some college students put social media before their school work. Social Media can have good and bad effects on an individual. Social networking is extremely popular. Some social network websites college students spend time using are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat etc. these social media sites impact both positively and negatively on the psychology of individuals.
First, it leads to unreal standards for appearance. The social media popularity concept is well understood by anyone who is using social networking sites and thus, for the purpose of gaining popularity, people may go out of their way to impress others. Students are increasingly becoming materialists and fake on their social network site (Meghawat et al., 2018). For example, taking a perfect profile picture is much important for the youths in order to get more likes and comments from their friends. Girls as young as 13 or less are posting suggestiveimages so as to get likes while young boys are obsessed with posting pictures . Recently a 13-year-old “selfie addict” attempted suicide after taking almost 200 pictures as none of them were “good enough” for him to be his display. In order to seem good-looking, people use different photo enhancing software to achieve the look of perfectionism . Seeing perfect pictures of their friends, individuals doesn’t feel satisfied with their own appearance and make steps to achieve an unreal standard of appearance. (Meghawat et al., 2018).
The culture of popularity; Social networking sites have been a prevalent Internet trend for the past many years. People are frequently in touch with their friends and far-off relatives through social media and it is the dominant form of communication. One major part of social networking sites is that of profiles. Individuals spend much time creating side views that are “cool” to maintain a certain social standard. It has been found that these profiles and friends that people have are used in judging an individual. Factors that decide social and physical attractiveness of a person entail other attractive friends that the individual has, other people’s comments on a person’s wall photo, or any other post, and the community association that a person has.
Also, emotional stability is a negative predictor of social networking site use. That is, individuals who are more anxious and unstable tend to rely on these sites. When looking at a specific use of social media-to create political content-emotional stability was a negative predictor, whereas extraversion had a positive impact. These findings confirm the usefulness of combining explorations of personality and digital media usage
Promoting of seeking behaviour; It must be noted that the main reason behind social networking sites is usually to extend the actual self out to the world and reach out to the society and not to promote anonymity. Another factor hidden behind this vast use and obsession with social networking is to seek approval of others and gain popularity. Many users of social media are obsessed with constant updating and sharing in order to gain more likes and popularity among friends . Not getting the expected feedback from “friends” can result in low self-esteem.
Increasing depressing and anxiety; It has been found that increasing use of social media also leads to depression, anxiety, and stress in youths. First, the “friendships” on social networking sites are superficial and not real. Mostly people have friends on their list that they have never really met or interacted with in real life. When people see on their newsfeeds how happy their “friends” are as they constantly upload pictures and statuses, they begin to feel unhappy with their life. This leads to depression and anxiety as the person starts feeling like a loner with no active social life.(Impact of Social Media on Personality
In conclusion, The factors identified above that influence personality development in individuals have many practical implications. Since the study shows that using social network sites is harmful to the personality development of the youthd mostly, efforts ought to be made to reduce these consequences. For example, efforts can be made to educate parents and school authorities about how social networking leads to a culture of popularity based on materialism and giving way to unreal standards of appearance. Parents and teachers can then begin moral education of children from an early age to help them realize that appearance is not everything as there are other aspects of personality, intelligence, and good nature of a person, which should be used as the basis for judging a person.
References
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