You start your summer day around 11 a.m. and sidle downstairs for a late breakfast where you check various forms of social media in between hefty bites of scrambled eggs and gulps of orange juice.
Suddenly, a thought comes to you. One that you think is absolutely hilarious. Or extremely relevant. Or just the right amount of sarcastic. Or very wise and mature.
Whatever it is, it’s perfect. And after patting yourself on the back a little bit, you decide to share this thought with your peers all at once with one of the many online platforms you just exited out of over breakfast. You type it, you post it, and you wait patiently for the 500 notifications you expect to receive after people read and process this magnificent idea you had right on the spot. Genius.
Twenty minutes pass.
One person likes it. You suddenly really love this person.
Forty minutes later, three more notifications. Only three?! You feel very alone and disliked by your peers.
But then, you become defensive.
Why do I care so much that four people liked it? It was a great thought I had there, a really good one. I don’t need other people to agree with me. I know it was good.
Now you start to doubt yourself.
Should I delete it?
Ultimately, you feel ridiculous for overthinking this entire debacle.
I have way too much time on my hands, you think.
Via: thesocialrobot.com
So now not only do you feel unpopular among your peers, you’re also wasting time second guessing exactly how much you care that you’re disliked by your peers. And then you waste more time wondering if it was just what you said, and maybe if you erased it from the universe everyone would forget you thought something really dumb.
Perhaps this scenario is slightly drawn out and exaggerated. But these conversations we have with ourselves happen whenever we feel rejected by our peers. According to a recent study on Facebook users, science agrees.
Researchers titled it “Threats to Belonging on Facebook: Lurking and Ostracism.” They split seventy-nine undergraduate students from The University of Queensland into two groups who were encouraged to post Facebook updates. One group suffered the horrors we just went through together over breakfast. Their Facebook accounts were rigged so that they would receive no positive feedback. These students reported lower levels belonging, self-esteem, control, and meaningful existence. The other group reported much higher levels in all four categories.
Via: visiblebanking.com
Because the hypothesis was supported by the data, the researchers involved made sure to explain the situation to the ostracized group so the experience would not affect their day-to-day lives.
Although we were already aware that we humans need positive social interactions to have higher self esteem (thank you, Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs), we can indeed conclude that the digital world does contribute to our self esteem just as much as the real world, and rightly so.
We have trouble determining whether social media is a positive or harmful tool. We feel more detached from it than real interaction, but the reinforcement you receive from these sites nonetheless has the power to boost or destroy your confidence.
Next time no one likes your status update, just tell yourself it’s probably another study. It is only a matter of time before some researcher magically appears and tells you he hid the 500 likes solely for research purposes.
Featured photo courtesy of: ericainthailand.blogspot.com
