Teen girls and “selfies” go hand in hand.
It’s probably just as prevalent in younger adult women; however, there is a big difference in teens and adults in their ability to make good decisions. So, while modern technology may be awesome in many ways, it also continues to propel social media to the forefront – and it’s that same social media that can wreak have on a teen girl’s self-esteem and have a dramatic effect on their self-awareness.
Why Selfies May Not Be So Great
When a teenage girl takes a selfie, she can spend all the time she needs getting the right angle and the perfect pose. Then, when she’s ready, she can upload it to her favorite social media platform to share. Like most teens, they await the comments and expect to have their friends post positive ones. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen, as teens are pressured into “friending” others through peer pressure, and because the whole intent – consciously or sub-consciously – is to get a little attention, selfies aren’t usually privately shared.
The result? When teen girls don’t get the positive response they are looking for, it can harm their self-esteem, but according to a European study, a decrease of intimacy and an increase in shallowness is directly related to a higher frequency of self-portraits, regardless of where they are posted on social media. Is this what we want to teach our teens?
Selfies are Making Growing Up Harder on Teens
All teens go through massive fluctuating hormone changes and experience all kinds of developmental changes, but the selfie is making it much harder to be a teen. Since technology allows so much more access to the individual – and immediate access at that – there is no filter for the good or the bad, and it makes teen girls’ self-awareness and self-esteem a hard thing to manage. While every girl wants validation, they don’t always get it in the way they want, and with bad timing, it can turn a perfectly healthy girl into one with severe emotional problems.