How Does Social Media Affect Self- concept', self- efficacy' and self -esteem'

HOW DOES SOCIAL MEDIA AFFECT SELF- CONCEPT Name: Grade Course: Tutor`s Name: (01 March 2012) How Does Social Media Affect Self- Concept This paper critically looks at how social media affects self-concept, self-efficacy and self-esteem. In the first part, the paper looks at the concepts of self-concept, self-efficacy and self-esteem. In the second part, the paper compares and contrasts the three concepts. Lastly, it looks at ways through which social media affect self- concept, self efficacy and self esteem. The idea of self-concept is used by psychologists to mean how an individual perceives or thinks about him or herself. This term is very significant to these dealing with social psychology as well as these dealing with humanism. According to Somech (2000), self-concept development is based on two major aspects, namely; self-existential and self category. Self-existential explains how the sense of being separate and different from others as well as being aware of self constancy. It is explained that "awareness of the existential self begins as young as two to three months old and arises in part due to the relation the child has with the world. For example, the child smiles and someone smiles back, or the child touches a mobile and sees it move" (Somech, 2000). After Self-existential, children start being aware that they are objects existing on earth. Like other existing objects, individuals have different characteristics that can also be observed like small or big. Self esteem on the other part means how individuals evaluate or appraise their overall worthiness in the society. It encompasses things like beliefs as well as emotions like pride and despite. To some existence, authors like Crocker and Park, (2004) differentiate self-esteem from self-concept by specifying that self-concept deals with what people think about themselves, while self-esteem, either positive or negative appraisal of the self, meaning how they feel about it. "A person`s self-concept consists of the beliefs one has about oneself, one`s self perception, or, expresses it, the picture of oneself. It is not the ‘facts` about one-self but rather what one believes to be true about one-self. Self-concept is used to mean a descriptive construct, such as ‘I am an athlete" (Park, (2004). Moreover, according to recent studies, Flook, et al. (2005) and Woolfolk (2001) have indicated that though both self-concept and self-esteem are used in evaluating the self, but self esteem goes a step further to include account for worthiness of that self. As a result, self-concept is used in describing, like ‘am an athlete`, while self-esteem is used in describing and evaluating, for instance, ‘am a good athlete`. In most cases, self-esteem has been viewed as being attractive as it can be used very influential indicator of important outcomes, particularly in academics. Woolfolk, (2001) states that self-concept means more than perceived ability, but also contains some percentage of evaluation and cognition. However, according t to Flook, et al. (2005), the basic components of self concept are self-image, self-esteem and self-ideal. So, self...