New media describes social media platforms used for mass communication, such as Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and others. It provides a range of activities from news to communication with other people to entertainment and work, and the possibilities seem endless. In this essay, I would like to discuss how new media affects our perception of ourselves and how we interact with people in real life.
In my experience, social media is the perfect place to keep in touch with close ones. I am frequently on my phone, waiting for text messages from my friends who live far away. New media gives me around-the-clock access to my loved ones (Leonard, 2021), so I spend most of my time on sites like WhatsApp and Telegram. I have also noticed that social media has made me more self-conscious. When reviewing photos that I would like to send to my friends or post on my page on Instagram, I often see the flaws in my appearance. It makes me increasingly self-conscious, and I believe it is due to the perfect faces we see on our feeds and subconsciously compare ourselves to.
I believe that new media has positive and negative aspects to it. On the one hand, it makes people more self-conscious because of constant exposure to other people. We start to perceive ourselves from the point of view of a third-party critical observer, which negatively affects our self-esteem and self-image. However, it also keeps us connected to the people that matter to us, which keeps loneliness and boredom away.
Reference
Leonard, V. (2021). New Media and the Self. COMS 246: Interpersonal Communication, 7.1.