Tiffany Seibert

Professor Robin Kramer

CAS 137H
1 November 2015
When Did Social Media Become My Life and How I Think About Myself?
Someone, who is unknown, once said, your value does not decrease
based on someones inability to see your worth. Todays internet-based and
technologically savvy world brings meaning to this quote that would have been
unprecedented before its time. The World Wide Web, as we know it, was created
in the year 1992 and since that time the web has expanded and become more
complex than we ever thought it would become ("The Invention, Internet). Not
only have people seen the expansion of the web, itself, but also, in the numbers
of ways, people communicate or not communicate with each other on a daily
basis. The shift in how people use the Internet has created psychological and
physiological implications due to a false view of other peoples lives created by
social media. People have been consistently moving towards a world of
superficially created quantitative satisfaction based on the amount of likes,
retweets, favorites, and pins people receive on social media. Since the
creation of social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, people have moved
away from personal interactions causing a riff in how people see their lives and
themselves.

The Internet has changed, since its creation, from a business-based, Cold
War initiative to a place that people can interact with one another. Throughout the
1980s people used the Internet as a way you send information in a way that was
impractical to most average people, a way of codes. ("The Invention, Internet)
This kept the Internet and its use mostly static. The Internet was only a place for
the most complex communications. However, in 1991 this all changed, when a
computer programmer, Tim Berners-Lee introduced the World Wide Web ("The
Invention, Internet). In 1993, the development towards Internet and the World
Wide Web, as we know it, continued with the creation of Mosaic. Mosaic was the
first text-based browser and University of Illinois students and researchers
created it. It was easy to use because of its point-and-click graphical
manipulations. ("Browser", Internet) The innovation of communication continued
by use of the Internet with the first blog appearing in 1998 ("Internet, Internet).
Throughout all the innovations that occurred in and due to the creation of
the Internet, communication has changed and the way we think has changed.
Since 1993 the Internet communication known as email, as we know it, was
introduced. Today about 188 billion emails are sent per day. (Eastman, Internet)
At this point the Internet was not just for corporate entities to express their work
and desires because they could afford a programmer, but also for the general
public to interact.
Interaction then evolved into the sharing of ideas among people who
werent just in a persons immediate circle of friends. The creation of Youtube
was one of the first public social environments on the Internet that allowed for

people to see into peoples lives that they did not already have a connection with.
Youtube was created in 2005 and was only acquired by Google, to the tune of
1.65 billion dollars, in the fall of 2006 (Fitzpatrick, Internet). For the first time, we
could pier into the lives of others that werent our friends and even become fans
of the person in the video. Not only that, but Youtube had a tracker for the most
popular videos, a number counter prominently put on the page, like it is still
today. People could now, quantitatively measure their interactions with others
and also their own popularity. This was the start of the buzz of psychological
implications around our own personal fandom. People could judge their
personalities, their way of life, how they look, and even how rich or not rich they
were.
In 2005, the public sees the creation of MySpace. MySpace was created
with the intention of interaction among people, but it quickly became a platform
for music artists and aficionados alike. Fans came to realize that many of their
favorite artists had MySpace pages, so they caught on and began creating and
leaving comments with their own profiles. Music is cultural glue among youth.
MySpace had a strong unifying American culture, however there was still division
between personalities, race and age. Profiles were created based on their
predecessor, dating sites, opening up an opportunity for not only for openness,
but also judgment in peers and ourselves. (Boyd, Internet)
Also, in 2004-2005 came the creation of the then less popular social
media site called Facebook. Facebook was designed by Mark Zuckerberg, a
Harvard student at the time, and was started with the intention of college student

interactions. It started at Harvard and slowly opened up to the masses of

colleges and universities in America. (Dickey, Internet) It looked much like a
dating profile page with the ability to connect and see information such as
email, relationship information, and interests. Facebook in its early form was
pretty static, not much was changing on a profile, as the ability to post current
and daily information was lacking in places.
Facebook evolved a year and a half after its creation with the
implementation of the News Feed in 2006. Users could now see all of their
Friends posts in one place, cohesively (Dickey, Internet). Now Facebook was
much less like a static dating site with a platform less cohesive than MySpace,
but a place that could enhance social interactions between lives. Throughout
2009 and 2010, Facebook continued to evolve by introducing notifications. It was
a way to enhance interactions by allowing people to immediately see that
someone liked their post and how many people liked their post as well
(Dickey, Internet). This introduction created a platform for immediate satisfaction
or dissatisfaction in their life or post by seeing how many people thought it was
cool or interesting. In 2011, Facebook introduced the final piece of over
enhanced interaction material by implementing the ticker (Dickey, Internet). The
ticker is a fixture that is commonly seen today on the desktop version of
Facebook and is meant to be a way for people to see their friends interactions
between other people immediately as they occur. Only further feeding into the
psychological satisfaction or dissatisfaction with Internet social media
interactions.

Due to the overall essence of todays Facebook, it impacts many people

psychologically and physiologically on a daily basis and even a minute-by-minute
basis. Overall the entire layout of Facebook is meant for people to see the
immediate interactions of their friends; however, the question that lies ahead is, is
there a shift in how we see ourselves and our friends based on what they post on
Facebook and other social media sites? Is this constant immediate availability
shifting our view of our relationships away from satisfactory and joyous
responses and more towards negative physiological views of our lives?
Facebook and other social media sites, such as Twitter, and Instagram
and Pinterest have become increasingly quantitative valued part of our lives, and
also most of the time exceeds the amount of personal interactions we have with
people. On average a person spends 1 hour and 40 minutes of their time on
social media per day. Four in ten people use Facebook regularly. (Davidson,
Internet) A small study from the University of Salford indicates that about half of
298 participants... say that their use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter
have makes their lives worse. Participants noted that their self-esteem suffers
when they compare their own accomplishments to those of their online friends.
(Indvik, Internet) Psychological affects, like a lower self-esteem are the
implications of being constantly connected to the judgments of friends and
followers, as well as what they post about their lives.
It is important to note that the posts of many friends are only what people
choose to highlight in their lives, not their whole lives (that would be a great big
Facebook and Twitter feed). Nonetheless, seeing the highlights of peoples lives

does have psychological implications that would not have occurred if people only
interacted on a face-to-face basis. Peoples self-esteem has shifted from relying
on the social face-to face interactions to constant exposure of the best of
peoples lives. People have begun to behave as though technology is in control
of them, instead of the other way around, said clinical psychologist Dr. Linda
Blar (Indvik, Internet).
Further studies suggest that Facebook creates an environment for people
to unknowingly judge a persons sense of social and interpersonal stability, which
we sometimes wrongly do. In article published in 2012, titled "They Are Happier
and Having Better Lives than I Am: The Impact of Using Facebook on
Perceptions of Others' Lives." by Dr. Hui-Tzu Grace Chou, he pointed out that
people have the tendency to assume that others actions and words reflect their
personality or stable personal disposition, rather than being affected by
situational factors (Chou, Internet). People tend to post only the best of their
lives, at times when they have a positive body image, are having a great time, or
generally feel good about their lives. Peoples brains, however, take these
images and statuses and twist them to cognitively persuade them that they dont
have perfect lives. A survey of 736 college students found that Facebook use
can trigger feelings of envy (Tandoc, Internet). It is the shift towards the fixation
with social media images and statuses that has caused this.
The next question that comes along is does quantitative tracking of how
likable or retweetable really caused a shift among many girls to create a
likable life in order to counteract the negativity they are feeling due to social

media? The answer is not very black and white, as people look around and see
many daunting ads about body image plastered on billboards. It can be inferred
that society thinks that Instagram stars such as Kylie Jenner and many other
stars across social media has created a psychological and physiological
movement among teen girls to be more like them in order to achieve more likes.
Logically saying, Kylie Jenner posts provocative pictures, like the one posted two
weeks ago on Instagram, and gets more than 1,143, 241 likes than maybe I
should too.
With the future of society, looking towards further engrossment into
technologically inclined lifestyles, people must look to inferring how the
implications of social media networks and constant change in how a person
interact with others on a daily basis effects people as individuals. It has been said
that a picture is worth 1000 words, so is a social media posting really does
change peoples brains and the way we think about ourselves times 1000. For
the future people must be aware that the depression caused by the pressure
caused by the amount of likes, retweets, and favorites receive pails in
comparison to our actual worth.
In conclusion, the shift in the way people use the Internet has shaped and
shifted from the way people think about themselves both psychologically and
physiologically. As a society, in order to counteract the negative effects of the
shift to social media interactions instead of face-to-face, people must keep in
mind that their lives are more valuable than their social media presence. Not only
have people seen the expansion of the web, itself, but also in the numbers of

ways they communicate or not communicate with each other on a daily basis.
The shift in how people use the Internet has created psychological and
physiological implications due to a false view of other peoples lives created by
social media. People have been consistently moving towards a world of
superficially created quantitative satisfaction based on the amount of likes,
retweets, favorites, and pins people receive on social media. Counteract this
shift by always knowing that, your value does not decrease based on someones
inability to see your worth.

Works Cited
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