Influence of Social Media on Teens’ Self Esteem by Gallagher

Qualitative Research Article Critique
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Qualitative Research Article Critique
Influence of Social Media on Teens’ Self Esteem by Gallagher, S. M.
Statement of the Problem
Several studies have shown that most people, especially teenagers, experience self-esteem issues depending on how people react to their posts on various social media handles such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. For instance, teenagers who receive more likes on their posts on social media tend to have high self-esteem, while those who receive the lowest number of likes show a lack of proper self-esteem. Lack of self-esteem has also been associated with mental problems among teenagers. Therefore, the study seeks to answer the question of what forms of social media used highly affect the teens' social esteem. The author of the study report hypothesizes that young people in the world today have allowed their social media to influence their social esteem.
Literature Review
The author of the article justifies her hypothesis from several studies showing that social media use dramatically affects individuals’ social esteem. The articles reviewed by the author also shows the dangers that can result among human being with low self-esteem such as depression and eating disorders. However, the literature discussed in the study does subject teenagers as the group that is highly affected. Again, they do not show the specific social media provisions such as comments, likes, or views in their relation to individuals' social esteem. Nevertheless, Gallagher still uses the study's findings to build on her hypothesis to fill the gaps left in the study, such as determining the specific user options in the social media accounts that highly influence the teenagers.
Methods
The study employs 130 participants sampled from two schools in a suburban area. One of the schools is medium-sized while the other is a large school. The sampled students are then subjected to two different surveys. The first is a social media use survey, which is more of a quantitative study that seeks to find out the numeric data such as the number of followers that the participants have on their social media accounts. The second survey is the qualitative self-esteem survey that seeks to determine the participants' self-perceptions about their image. The second survey also had 111 participants as 11 participants did not qualify since they lacked social media accounts.
Even t...