Social media has a bad effect on our self esteem and emotions - what do you think?

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According to several recent studies social media fosters the feeling of unhappiness, self-devaluation and lowered self-esteem. Younger generations are more vulnerable as those in their 30s/40s, because for these youngsters using intelligent devices became a lifestyle, an important part of their extended self (as opposed to us, older ones, who always consider these gadgets as "tools"). Millenials (those born between 1980 and 2000) and Generation Z (born after 2000) are especially affected as these young people were basically born into the online space.

What are the factors behind it?

Even if we are not aware of it, we are constantly comparing ourselves to others at these social media sites: who has more, bigger, better, more expensive, more beautiful of something or anything. Same happens with persons and relationships. There are thousands of better looking, more attractive people smiling at us from the Internet. This century is governed by "beautism", the value of a person is measured by his/her attractiveness. And we have to possess a very "massive" self-esteem to protect us from feeling undervalued.

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Online space multiplies the number of competitors. And the fact that we always have a good chance to find a "better" partner, does not help long-term engagement.

We have an age of "social narcissism" (by Jean Twenge). In earlier ages (before the Internet) people did not really like conceited and narcissistic persons. Imagine that 20 years ago someone appeared at a party with three big snapshot albums in his hand and said "please sit next to me, let me show you my self-portaits", what would you have said? Today makig selfies is a social norm, it became well-accepted or even trendy. We do not consider this behaviour narcissistic anymore - though indeed it is. Today people want to share their experiences rather than really going though them and engage in them.

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It might be enviable how a narcissistic person communicates and appears in public, but this is just a facade in many cases. These persons are rarely that satisfied as they seem. These posts serve as an "online infusion" to their self-esteem (a characteristic that should rather be "fueled" from the inside to be powerful enough).

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Time spent in the online space poses a "tsunami" of stimuli on people. Constant communication on superficial things - posts, sharing, likes etc. - can be demanding emotionally. Young people spending many ours in this space are not only lacking peace and quiet self-reflection, but their real curiosity and true interest towards others seems to vanish as well. Emotions become "fireworks": their intensity tends to skyrocket and then fall rapidly.

But our emotions are "fueled" by one of the most archive structures of our brain and therefore we can hardly speed them up. There is a so-called "holding" function of emotions that is very important. In earlier ages we had to "hold" our emotions inside and wait until we met our friends and had an opportunity to talk through what had happened to us. Nowadays we do not hold back emotions: we post and share what is happening with us, i.e. we export our emotions very quickly to the outside world, instead of holding them inside and coping with them. This is called "emotional incontinence". Holding is the basis of many subconscious emotional strategies that can help us in solving our problems and coping with stress.

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So we, parents owe some very important lessons to these generations before they start to rule the world. Don't you think so? What is your opinion?