Research Paper Intro

            The man sitting next to you on the bus, the girl in the row in front of you at the movie theatre, every patient in the doctor’s waiting room – each scrolls mindlessly through Twitter as time passes spent not in the moment but in the realm of social media. However, said scrolling is not necessarily mindless; social media yields psychological effects on users. Social media is a growing feat of technology that is quickly becoming a necessity in modern culture, but the impact of social media on mental health is often underestimated. Mental wellness, in terms of self-esteem and self-identity, is heavily influenced by the interactions found on social media. The intended purpose of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is to provide a platform for users to share information and communicate through social networking. As Sherry Turkle describes in “Selections from Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other,” social media diverges from its intentions as users begin to consider their online profiles as extensions of their identities – idealized self-images. Subsequently, users are subject to inaccurate comparisons to unrealistic “standards” of how one is supposed to look or act. Comparisons lead to discrepancies, discrepancies lead to self-doubt, and self-doubt is often detrimental to mental health. Although the extent to which social media contributes to mental health is contingent upon the detrimental effects that comparisons have on self-esteem, said analysis allows for insight as to how social media can properly be used to benefit the mental wellness of users.