Effects Of Social Networking Sites On Subjective Wellbeing In Young Adults: An Essay.

Definition of Social Networking Sites

Discuss about the Social Networking Sites And Wellbeing.

Social networking sites (SNSs) have become an integral and almost inseparable part of human lives as every minute, billions of people login to numerous social sites for various purposes. The youth in particular, have been remarkably influenced by the emergence of social sites. It is a fact that the youth hold the key to the development of any country and their physical and emotional wellbeing matters. Therefore, highlighting the issue of the adverse effects of social sites on the subjective wellbeing is important.

The essay will focus on the growing popularity and demand of social networking sites and the repercussions of using these sites on subjective wellbeing in young adults.

A technical definition of the social networking site could be that it is a web application that people across the world use to construct social relations or ‘networks’. The network is created by viewing the profile created by different users and sending and receiving friend requests. People make friends online with whom they chat and share common interests. A social world is created on the digital platform that gives an opportunity for everyone to speak out their minds especially those who prefer to stay anonymous. Varying categories of people could be found on these SNS platforms – some who like to expose while some who try to raise a voice but keep their identity a secret. People post pictures and videos online in an attempt to receive as much likes and reactions as possible. Although the clicking of a simple ‘like’ button does not seem to create much of an effect, some young adults do get affected by it.  Receiving likes and positive comments on SNSs have an impact on the wellbeing of the users.

As Tromholt (2016) explains, “the concept of wellbeing is gaining more and more interest” in recent years due to the increase in the use of SNSs and its emphasis in policies designed for the public. Wellbeing could be physical, mental and emotional and it is important for an individual to maintain all aspects of wellbeing. One can assess whether someone maintains his or her wellbeing properly by analyzing the medical history he or she has. Those who suffer from various illnesses like depression, obesity and so on are identified as those who do not care for their wellbeing. The use of Facebook has also been linked to the wellbeing of the people in recent years. In a study conducted by Kross et al., (2013), it was found that the affective wellbeing of Facebook users are extremely low when spent more time in it and subsequently high when they were not using it. The study further revealed, “The more participants used Facebook, the more their life satisfaction levels declined over time”. It demonstrated how Facebook had an influence on the cognitive wellbeing of the people.

The Influence of Facebook on Cognitive Wellbeing

Many have asked the question as to how Facebook contributes towards or affects the subjective wellbeing of individuals. Subjective wellbeing, as Steptoe, Deaton and Stone (2015) point out, has three aspects that can be categorized as evaluative wellbeing or life satisfaction, hedonic wellbeing or feelings if happiness, anger, sadness and so on and eudemonic wellbeing or the sense of meaning and purpose in life. Kim and Lee (2011) find that the use of Facebook results in the increase of subjective wellbeing in both negative and positive ways. It depends, state the authors, on the number of friends, young people have on Facebook and the strategy they use to present themselves on the social site. The study by Kross et al., (2013) found that little research had been done on the reasons for Facebook’s influence on the subjective wellbeing of the young users. The authors therefore used an experience-sampling method to identify the exact reasons as to why and how Facebook influences subjective wellbeing. The authors found that ‘direct’ social interaction did not have any significant difference in the satisfaction levels or subjective wellbeing of the users. It clearly indicated that the satisfaction or gratification people find in Facebook is far more than they do in real life.

Most of the studies conducted on the influence of SNSs and Facebook in particular indicated negative outcomes, although some positive aspects of Facebook use are also there. However, it is also true that the positive influence of Facebook has been mostly found on users who have attained a ‘less risky’ age. As found in the study conducted by Hardy and Castonguay (2018), the users aged 30 years or above have had positive relationship with SNSs including Facebook while respondents between the ages of 18 to 29 years showed a negative relationship. The study thus revealed that the subjective wellbeing of SNS users largely depends on their age as this aspect of their life allows them to understand the different between actual reality and virtual reality. It is therefore important to understand the relationships between the use of SNS and subjective wellbeing because it differs according to age.

Different studies find different relationships in between the use of social networking sites and the issue of well-being as because of the fact those different studies have made use of different respondents for the survey process that they have conducted in order to come to a conclusion. It is a fact that different people have different perspectives and all their perspectives are set on the basis of different experiences of their life. Different research reports and articles consider different group of people belonging from a wide range of different backgrounds. For some, the relationship in between the use of social networking sites and well-being are all about positives and for some it is all about negativity. There are others as well who have the potential to assess both the positive and the negative impacts of social networking sites on a person’s mental, emotional, social and sometimes, physical health (Verduyn et al., 2017).

Relationship between SNS use and Subjective Wellbeing

It is to note that social media sites not always lay negative impact on the well-being of an individual. They are some of the activities of sharing the information and messages with other people belonging from an online space of internet. There is a positive association in between the well-being of a person and the use of social networking sites and they are typically related to the advantages of the increased connections like social support. On the other hand, the negative associations in between these two go hand in hand with the behaviours which do not assist for meeting the needs of the users for the acceptance as well as belonging. From the evidences provided in the vast range of sources, it has been concluded that the issue of social media is quite new to the present generation and therefore the conclusive findings are very limited. However, most of the studies have ultimately concluded that the excessive use of social media sites within the children and the youngsters are resulting in stress. People now-a-days makes use of social media sites in order to vent about each and everything right from the customers services to the politics, but it is also to note that the downside to this is- their feeds many a times resemble an unlimited and endless stream of stress among them. Some of the studies suggest that women are more stressful than man because of over use of social media sites (Van Deursen et al. 2015). Overall, most of the researchers have argued that these uses of sites are related to “modesty lower levels” of stress.

It is thus evident from the literature on the relationship between SNSs and subjective wellbeing that subjective wellbeing is highly influenced by the SNSs, Facebook in particular. The essay highlighted the influence of Facebook on the cognitive wellbeing of the users, which was preceded by an explanation of SNSs and wellbeing in general.

References:

Hardy, B. W., & Castonguay, J. (2018). The moderating role of age in the relationship between social media use and mental well-being: An analysis of the 2016 General Social Survey. Computers in Human Behavior, 85, 282-290.

Kim, J., & Lee, J. E. R. (2011). The Facebook paths to happiness: Effects of the number of Facebook friends and self-presentation on subjective well-being. CyberPsychology, behavior, and social networking, 14(6), 359-364.

Kross, E., Verduyn, P., Demiralp, E., Park, J., Lee, D. S., Lin, N., ... & Ybarra, O. (2013). Facebook use predicts declines in subjective well-being in young adults. PloS one, 8(8), e69841.

Steptoe, A., Deaton, A., & Stone, A. A. (2015). Subjective wellbeing, health, and ageing. The Lancet, 385(9968), 640-648.

Tromholt, M. (2016). The Facebook experiment: Quitting Facebook leads to higher levels of well-being. Cyberpsychology, behavior, and social networking, 19(11), 661-666.

Van Deursen, A. J., Bolle, C. L., Hegner, S. M., &Kommers, P. A. (2015). Modeling habitual and addictive smartphone behavior: The role of smartphone usage types, emotional intelligence, social stress, self-regulation, age, and gender. Computers in human behavior, 45, 411-420.

Verduyn, P., Ybarra, O., Résibois, M., Jonides, J., &Kross, E. (2017). Do Social Network Sites Enhance or Undermine Subjective Well?Being? A Critical Review. Social Issues and Policy Review, 11(1), 274-302.