Questioning Is Social Media Making More Narcissistic: Digital Narcissism

Gender is among the most influential factors that affect self-esteem and digital narcissism among children. As compared to boys, Feldman in 2017 realized that girls are more disturbed about their physical appearance than boys. By this, a girl’s self-esteem is always low and very compromising, especially during adolescence. Due to this, girls are more likely to experience low self-esteem than boys during adolescent. Therefore, girls are always focused a lot on making themselves successful on digital platforms as this maintains their high esteem.

Young children tend to compare their abilities using certain hypo-ethical standards. As they grow, they begin to experience new changes as a result of body and mental development. With the increased digital platforms, children are able to stay connected facilitating easier comparison. Digital platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram among others accelerates peer communication and social comparisons by providing the children with an opportunity to share ideas, opinions, and new experiences form their fellows. According to Feldman (2017) having close peers plays a significant role in providing an opportunity for children to compare their capabilities.

In most cases, children find the best place to interact freely with their peers to be the digital platforms. As a fact, there majority of teens are getting addicted by social media majorly because they use it for communication. Feldman in his book states that young teenagers like associating themselves with individuals who freely share and acknowledge their experience. Therefore, illustrates how digital platforms are perfect tools for interaction and comparison among children. 

The age of adolescence is usually influential, and children spend most of their time exploring new ideas, around them. During this stage, children compare themselves to a particular group of individuals with desired qualities, otherwise known as reference groups. The introduction of social media has made it easier for children to reach out to various peer group and compare as a reference point for comparison. According to Feldman (2017), teenagers often have their preferred person(s) with whom they are obsessed or admire. In most cases, they tend to copy some of the lifestyles associated with these reference group such as fashion. In other words, they will use particular person(s) as their reference point for comparison. Such incidences are common especially in children who are accessed to digital platforms.

Some of the consequences of self-esteem related to digital narcissism can either be a success or failure in a child’s performance. A child can either have high self-esteem or low self-esteem. Children with high self-esteem always have positive expectations. Even if they fail to achieve standards set by their peers on digital platforms, they are usually ready to recollect themselves and refocus their strengths towards success. On the other hand, children with low esteem are associated with adverse outcomes. They typically become anxious, and this disrupts their concentration capabilities leading to poor performance. Feldman (2017) found out that children with low self-esteem usually have poor concentration due to high levels of anxiety and therefore always expect to perform poorly especially in academics. When such cases persist, the child can undergo a painful life even till adulthood.