Abstract

The advent of social media has fundamentally altered the way individuals represent themselves online and, to some extent, in face-to-face interactions. This shift has had significant implications for identity, fostering a more toxic and argumentative atmosphere due to the anonymity afforded by social platforms and the lack of tone in digital communication. This paper explores the negative effects of anonymity on online interaction, drawing on studies that highlight increased hostility and misinterpretation in anonymous online exchanges while still addressing the positive aspects of social media that have helped generate change.

Introduction

Through the advent of social media, we have witnessed major adjustments to the way in which people represent themselves in an online space and to some extent, in face to face encounters. Through the effects it has had on Identity, it has helped fester a more toxic and argumentative attitude within people, due to the anonymous nature that is held by social media, and also from the lack of tone within posts or messages, leading to people often misinterpreting the original meaning of it, causing the occurrence of an affray. Then with the shield of anonymity, people are able to say what they wish, without any fear of consequence, leading to people to share much more negative and offensive messaging, than one would were they speaking with a revealed identity.

Then through the advent of photo and video sharing medias, a rise in insecurity has risen in users. This has led to people striving to reach unobtainable appearances or lifestyles flaunted by the Influencers of the platforms. Then when the common person falls short, it commonly leads to feelings of insecurity and depression.

From these points, it is visible that social media usage should be limited extremely to help prevent the continuation of these problems that are caused by it. To help improve mental health, help curb the rise in insecurity, and also help with communication between people to be less toxic creating a much more friendly environment.

The Effect of Anonymity on Online Interaction

A large part of that holds bearing in the way in which people speak on social media is cast by the underlying anonymity of the platform that they use. With a large measure of social media platforms not needing any form of identification for the user to post or comment within the website. This was shown to have a detrimental effect on the way people communicate, leading them to often assert more hostile and argumentative language in their posts and comments. This was validated by a 2012 study in South Korea (Cho, Kim & Acquisti 2012). The South Korean Government has passed a law, requiring users to link their social media accounts with their true identity. After the implementation, there was a clear sign of improvement in how people would communicate with each other. Most of the time being more cordial in their online interactions, which proved to be a significant contrast to how online interactions were handled prior to the law. This showed to be a true real life example of how the anonymity factor of social media, helps bring toxicity into the online communities, from the lack of fear of consequence.

Another study from 2016 (Barnidge, 2016) conducted an experiment in an attempt to witness the difference between politically driven conversations on social media in which the user has the veil of anonymity, compared to a discussion held face to face. It was found that often when a person is a regular user of social media, they are more likely to perceive an interaction as a negative altercation, both online and to some extent, in person. Whereas a person who doesn’t regularly engage with social media is more likely in leave an interaction more positively. This could be concluded as being caused from often witnessing a lack of tone within online communication, plus with the added hostility of trolls on the internet or people who argue for the enjoyment of arguing. These could be seen to lead people into interpreting what is intended to be a civil conversation, as something unintentionally hostile.

However, a positive aspect to the anonymity of social media. The anonymity, while it allows people to hide themselves and engage in more toxic behaviours, it also allows communities of people to grow without persecution and to engage in their interests without the fear of bullying for the interest. It has also been found the anonymity helps push social and political movements, by people being more comfortable to spread the information they are passionate about, without any of it being able to affect them in their personal lives, or interfere with there workplace in the way non-anonymous posts have the ability to do (Sardá et al., 2019) .

The Alterations of Identity

In the rise of social media, we have also bore witness to a mass shift in the persona a person holds after engaging online. Through the design of social media, which some has coined as a “Gamification” of social media (Lackey, 2021), where people are incentive’s to strive for higher like counts with an assortment of positive reaffirming comments, there was a visible adjustment in the topics and motif in what was posted or shared. With this “Gamification” in mind, it would push people who post on social media, to tailor their posts and online self to fit more homogeneously with that of the crowd. There has also been incidents where there was a noticeable movement of groups online to push for their opinion to be forced onto the people who hold opposing views, which is also according to Lackey to be a byproduct of this “Gamification”. This then follows the trend of natural human behaviour, as we have an internal desire to associate with a group and mould our personalities to fit in with that group. It is now just on a much larger scale than ever before. (Koivula et al., 2019)

Within another study (Karim, 2020), it was revealed that consistent users of social media where significantly more likely to identify with anxiety and depression. This was then corroborated by an additional study (Escobar-Viera et al., 2018) that noticed a 70% increase in self reported depressive symptoms after consistent social media usage. With these two research groups, it helps illustrate a trend towards social media having a negative impact on mental health, which gives a clear sign of the dangers that it poses to the average person. When there is such a sharp uptick of mental health problems after engaging in use of social media, people should be more conscious of this and work towards limiting their media consumption. This is a difficult task however, due to the fact that social media has been “Optimised for Addiction” (Allison, n.d.), through their use of specially designed algorithms to attempt to display what is most likely to keep a user hooked on the platform. Making it an even more troubling prospect that the thing that assists in causing problems, also actively tries to keep the users engaged as much as possible, just leading to more problems.

As a contrary point to this, social media has also helped many people become more confident in their identity. An example of this is within the LGBT community and how through the internet, they are able to interact with like minded people who are able to assist them with how they feel with their identity, and help increase the security they feel in it. This for many people is something that is impossible to have in real life interactions, as many people live in areas or households where this thinking would be unacceptable, causing the internet to be the last bastion for them to be honest about it. (Stewart, 2018)

It also assists with political identity, by allowing people to interact with others that are like-minded and able to tutor and teach people into a more educated way about the politics they are interested in. This is beneficial to help people engage with a spectrum of political opinions and help create a well researched one, assisting in improving their political identity. Then with the previously mentioned anonymity, it allows them to be more vocal about their opinions which based off of the received feedback online, can also help shape the political identity to be more refined and suiting of their character.

The Depreciation of Self Image

We then have the significant decrease in peoples self perception due to the effects of social media. Through the rise of applications like Youtube, Instagram, and TikTok, people have found themselves comparing their lives, physique and appearance to that of the influencers they see online. This disparagement of self image can be seen through the new rise that has begun in teenagers taking steroids (Anabolic Steroids and Other Appearance and Performance Enhancing Drugs (APEDs), n.d.)(de Ronde & Smit, 2020), in an attempt to achieve the physiques of these fitness influencers (Huang et al., 2020). These people are attempting to reach what is to most people an impossible physique that is acquired through having fitness be a full time job, with the assistance of steroids, but it is being displayed as if it is the norm and easily obtainable. From the easily obtainable perception of it, this leads these teenagers and in a lot of case, adults as well, to become more insecure and depressed about the proportions of their own body and view the issues of it as fault of their own. Then when people turn the steroids to assist them in reaching these idealistic physiques that are presented online, it has begun leading to a rise in steroid related deaths (Torrisi et al., 2020). It was also found that adolencents who engage more with social media, are far more likely to develop self image problems that lead to eating disorders. (Fardouly et al., 2020)

It is also seen that on these platforms, a lack of likes received by a user can correlate to a feeling of inadequacy and being left out (Lopes et al., 2022), leading to increased feelings of depression and anxiety. Which then also links to the aforementioned desire to mould ones self image to be able to appease the masses and build more of an audience to feel security in ones self.

 

Conclusion

So from all the information that has been shown throughout this, it is clear to see that social media is a detriment to peoples well being. It holds negative effects towards peoples mental health and helps create insecurities in young people, causing them to use substances or develop eating disorders which could have life long effect, and in many cases, even cause death. The dangers of consistent social media use are real and should be addressed by each individual by working towards limiting screen time significantly to revert the negative effects it has caused. With this being said, it should also be remembered that social media does hold its positive side by allowing communities to be more vocal about their issues and for many people, become more secure in themselves and their identity by being able to speak with people who hold similar identities and can relate better than most people that can be found in person. With these thoughts together, it shows the tightrope that social media is and that it should be engaged with less, but for many people, not completely.

 

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