Tamara Vukovic

Salt Lake
Community
AN
College

Professor
Jorgensen
UNEXPECTED
BURDEN:
SOCIAL MEDIA

Its Not Always as Positive as It Seems

Technology has been advancing at incredible rates for

several decades and one of the most utilized innovations
has been social media. It offers individuals a platform
through which they can speak, share ideas, spread
awareness, and connect with people across the globe.
Social media offers a conglomerate of benefits to the
 Individuals can now
speak to someone An Unexpected burden: social media
without having to hear
their voice, see their modern world and it
reactions, and even reply is used by millions of
with disingenuous people a day. Social
dialogue without having media helps
to second guess what connectivity among
was said previously. people that may have
These individuals are
never met given the
now exhibiting
circumstances of
narcissistic behaviors in
geographic barriers.
which they are not aware
of because it has It has become very
become mainstream. convenient to get
your point across
about any topic and one can socialize at a much larger rate
than in person. While there are several positive factors that
social media creates, there is still some negative as well.
Individuals can now speak to someone without having to
hear their voice, see their reactions, or even reply with
disingenuous dialogue without having to second guess
what was said previously. These individuals are now
exhibiting narcissistic behaviors which they are not aware
of because it has become commonplace.

The users of social media are at fault and they must take a
look at just how much time they spend on their devices,
how what they are viewing is affecting them
psychologically, and if it is truly necessary to post every
detail of their daily lives online.

Narcissism

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 An Unexpected burden: social media

Many people will not think of their consequential actions or

behavior on these social media sites. It is slowly changing
the way many will behave, especially children who have
never lived without it. Narcissism is being projected
through most profiles you find on popular social media sites
such as Facebook, Twitter, and especially Instagram.
Instead of creating new friendships, people are becoming
obsessed with how many likes, shares, retweets, etc that
they get on their sites. They are in constant search of
validation from their peers, causing some of these
individuals will go to extreme lengths to become noticed.
Sometimes, the individual will become engulfed with their
ego and will lash out on other people who are getting any
sort of attention or put down those who do not get any at
all.

Cyberbullying

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The reason that cyberbullying is common is because the

Cyberbull
one provoking the drama is hidden behind a screen and
y
thus there are no direct consequences. People will say
methods: things on their social media platforms that they could never
* say face to face. Since there is a barrier, the individual may
Harassment
feel that they can get away with cruel language and
* Doxing
behavior. A newer kind of bullying has been introduced
*Slander
through social media and it is regarded as cyber-bullying.
*Revealing Cyber-bullying is bullying that takes place solely online. It
Personal
Information can include rude behavior, slander, revealing personal

*Insults information, and most dangerously, doxing which leaks

*Spreading addresses, names, and other private information. As stated

in Narcissism in the Modern World, the author writes,
*Rumors
Cyber-bullying feeds the narcissists sense of superiority
and there is a terrible cost to this false sense of self-worth
with real damage being done to bullied, vulnerable and
impressionable young people. (MacDonald, 4). The cyber-
bully loves attention, whether it be negative or positive.

Seeking Validation Via Social Media

Narcissism is also shown through posts that people make
and how often they are made, before the selfie, pictures
were taken of scenes, people and anything the specific
individual deemed as memorable. The youth are now
taking hundreds of pictures until they feel presentable
enough to gain validation from their peers. Self-love and
confidence is an admirable trait, but there is a line between
what is healthy and what is not. It is not healthy to obsess
over ones looks and post about it in order for others to

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 An Unexpected burden: social media

make a person feel good about themselves. The narcissistic

traits are seen in relationships, and thus hinder the growth
and connection between people. Instead of two people
working together on a relationship, individuals are making
it their peers business which creates situations where
there is no room for privacy.

Does Multitasking actually work?

Another hindrance that social media has created is
the illusion of multitasking. It is a concept that seems
productive, but it is not entirely possible to focus fully on
more than one activity at once. This is commonly referred
to as the bottleneck theory, which states that we as
individuals are only able to process a partial amount of
information at any given time. This was a theory that was
first presented by Donald Broadbent, who was a
psychologist that studied at Cambridge. Jari Ktsyr from
Aalto University studied multi-tasking, the attraction of
negative stimuli and its effects on a person and she argued

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An Unexpected burden: social media

Psychological studies have demonstrated that people are

limited in performing two stimulus response tasks
concurrently because cognitive resources required in such
tasks can be utilized by only one task at a time (Ktsyr 3).
When on social media, the users are usually engaged in
another activity such as watching television, socializing,
homework, etc. Its difficult to fully direct focus on two
activities simultaneously. If two friends are spending time
together and they end up being on their phones the entire
time, they are not actively communicating with each other.
They may have conversations but their thoughts are
focused on whatever is on their screens. Whatever is more
interesting to the social media user at that moment is
where the attention will
Bottleneck
fully be directed to.
theory We as
Social media can especially
individuals are
be distracting at
only able to
work and process a partial thus the
workers are amount of less efficient
because they information at are spending
their time on their phones. Using social media on the job
can not only be distracting, but in work that deals with
personal information the customers could be at risk for
identity theft. Many of those employers will ban the use of
phones on the floor, but the managers may not see if their
employees are on their phones unless they are constantly
monitoring those individuals.

The Dangers of Confirmation Bias and

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More
Many users of social media will express their opinions
online and will expect the people that they interact with to
agree wholeheartedly with them. These users will fall into
an abysmal cycle of confirmation bias. This confirmation
bias can be tied in with the narcissism that stems from
social media and if the user is arrogant enough to believe
only their opinions are correct, they will find evidence in
anything biased toward their opinion to prove their points.
This can result in creating an online echo chamber in which
an individual will refuse to hear opinions opposing theirs
and will begin to block or delete anyone who essentially
isnt a virtual yes man.
The reason why these users are engulfed in their own
confirmation bias is that they cannot stand the thought of
being wrong and do not want to be proven wrong,
especially not publicly on their own social platform. The
more emotionally driven the opinion, the stronger the bias
shall be overall. Armen E. Allahverdyan from the
Department of Theoretical Physics at the Yerevan Physics
Institute, Armenia, and Aram Galstyan of the USC
Information Sciences Institute in California published a
research article through Middlesex University which tells us
how they studied the different types of opinion dynamics in
regards to confirmation bias. The two researchers assert
that, essentially, those conditions formalize the intuition
that the agent P does not change his opinion if the
persuasion is either far away or identical with his existing

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opinion
(Allahverdyan &
Galstyan 1)

Bad When it comes to

Habits of facts, if someone is

wrong, its simple to
Social
convince them once
Media
given the proper evidence, but in accordance to something
Users:
subjective it becomes a game of morals. This is especially
seen on social media through the concept of virtue
Confirmations
Bias
signaling in which users will give their opinions on
Virtue
controversial topics or discuss a tragedy in an attempt to
Signaling
prove how virtuous they are to their peers. Virtue signaling
Echo
is not necessarily a bad thing. However, if the user is only
Chambers
virtue signaling to get attention, approval, or even likes,
retweets, shares, etc, is it truly virtuous, or is it attention
seeking? It is yet another narcissistic behavior that is being
exhibited online that is committed by most users of social
media.
Its important to realize that just because someone isnt
posting about something, it does not automatically mean
that they do not care about the topic being discussed.
Cognitive dissonance is similar to hypocrisy online because
it is shown that several users will use their profiles to
preach positivity, however, they will do that very thing they
are preaching against. In the case of cognitive dissonance
online, individuals will try to push a specific image of
themselves online and wish for people to view them at their

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best. They can hold a specific opinion but also believe in

something contradictory in instances to appear as if they
are open minded. An example would be if an individual said
that no one should be engaging in a particular activity but
also go on to say that its okay if they do. This can also be
the result of an individual wanting approval from anyone
that they engage with.

Attraction to Negativity
Social media is not a bad thing, there are several positive
movements and awareness programs that have developed
from social media. It ties everyone together and it gives
people a chance to talk to people across the world from the
convenience of their homes. However, It leads to problems
with overuse. Much like overconsumption can be unhealthy,
overuse of social media can be mentally unhealthy. While
there are positive ways to use social media, many times
the users are focused on something negative. Negative
situations, opinions, or words will leave a longer lasting
effect on a person rather than something that is positive.
Ktsyri argues in an essay that: This effect can be
explained by the different sensitivities (i.e., activation
functions) of the appetitive and aversive motivational
systems to positive and negative stimuli, respectively [15]:
although appetitive activation is greater in a neutral
environment (positivity offset), aversive activation
increases more steeply for negative stimuli than appetitive
activation does for positive stimuli (negativity bias),
(Ktsyri et al, 2).

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Humans are more prone to focus on negativity rather than

positivity and it will stay in the mind longer. Due to the
preference of negativity, this can have an effect on any
social media users mental health since they are exposed
to it at an excessive rate. Negativity on social media can be
categorized as drama between peers, hateful statements,
hurtful comments, bullying, doxing, rumors, socially
unacceptable behavior, glorified illegal behaviors, suicidal
posts, and
peer pressure. All of this can be found through scrolling a
social media timeline or news feed. The quantity of the
exposure depends on which people the individuals choose
to have on their profiles
or even
Due to the preference the
of negativity, this can
algorithm created by
have an effect on any
sites such as Facebook
social media users
that show the user
mental health since
common they are exposed to it things that
they view at an excessive rate. or are
interested in. If a
Facebook user follows specific people who are prone to the
listed behaviors, they may view these posts often. The
person may choose to delete these people if it is something
that they do not wish to see, however, this is not the case
for the average user who may be intrigued by the posts.
Individuals are directly influenced by their peers and people
they hold to a high regard and if they see these people

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engaging in negative behaviors this can influence the user

to engage in it as well. For example, by glorifying drugs
online this exposes easily manipulated minds to want to try
the illegal substance because if their peers are doing it this
may convince the user that it is not entirely bad. A
bandwagon effect is created by viewing other peers
behaving in a similar manner and mimicking said behavior.

Mob Mentality
A similar effect that is commonly seen online is known as
the mob mentality. A mob mentality is a situation in which
people are influenced by their peers usually with higher
status and will thus develop certain beliefs or behaviors. If
a well-known figure online decides to boycott a specific
product and tells their fans online that they should not use
the product and also directs hate toward a company
without researching it on their own, this is a mob mentality.
If a person is popular online they have more influence over
people than someone who is not well known. Regular
people may be susceptible to these negative behaviors and
it can lead to cyber-bullying.

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Conclusion
There are negative and positive consequences of the
amount of usage, and as a result, it is affecting the
psychology of human interaction. Due to the lack of
acknowledgement of conditioned behaviors through social
media such as narcissism, virtue signaling, cognitive
dissonance, mob mentality, bandwagoning, and the ease of
cyber-bullying, we have allowed these behaviors become
standard. Confidence and self-worth should not be
determined by the amount of attention an individual
receives on their online social media accounts. Self-worth
should be determined by accomplishments, positive
character traits, well established relationships with peers
and family members. Regardless of all the negative aspects
that come from social media, its here to stay, therefore it
is crucial that these psychological behaviors are confronted
on a personal and national level. Regular users of social
media must take into account how much time they are
wasting on their devices when they could be interacting
with the people in front of them. They are missing out on
developing deep connections with the physical people in
their daily lives whether it be at school, work, or even
people they could meet on the street.

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Works Cited

Allahverdyan, Armen E., and Aram Galstyan. "Opinion Dynamics With Confirmation
Bias."

Plos ONE 9.7 (2014): 1-14. Academic Search Premier. Web. 31 July 2016.

Ktsyri, Jari, et al. "Negativity Bias In Media Multitasking: The Effects Of Negative
Social

Media Messages On Attention To Television News Broadcasts." Plos ONE 11.5 (2016):1-

21. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 July 2016

MacDonald, Pat. "Narcissism In The Modern World." Psychodynamic Practice 20.2

(2014): 144-

153. Academic Search Premier. Web. 15 July 2016.

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