THEEFFECTSOFINSTAGRAMONSTUDENT’sSELFESTEEM AT DJILALI BOUNAAMAUNIVERSITY

Abstract

Social media has helped to connect people all over the world. New platforms are beingdiscovered all the time ; some are useful, whileothers are not. However, the purpose of thisstudyis to investigate the relationshipbetween social networking sites, especially Instagram, and self-esteem in bothgenders (girls and boys), as well as to determinewhichgenderis more affected. A mixed methodsresearch design wasadopted at Djilali BounaamaUniversity on 50 first-yearstudents (25 girls and 25 boys). Represented in two questionnaires alongwith the Rosenberg self-esteem scale and the Netherlands social comparison orientation survey. The researchfindingsconfirmedthatfemalesspend more time on Instagram than males and are readilyfueled by whattheysee on phone displays. In addition, resultsshowedthatthey have lower self-esteem and a strongerneed to compare themselves to others, whereas males do not. As italsorevealed a linkbetween Instagram use and self-esteem, whichindicatesthat the latter declines as a result of their total use of Instagram. Implications and limitations of thisresearch as well as suggestions for future research are alsodiscussedaccordingly.