CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

The use of social media has significantly increased, and the research into how self - esteem has

impact on it becomes popular. The researchers sometimes hear from individuals, both friends and family

members, that when browsing social media news feeds often leads to sadness and depression. It is

upsetting when oneself start to make such a comparison. This especially applies to social media when

someone chooses to show fake perfection on certain sites and not the reality. This research examined

the relationship of social media on the self-esteem of senior high school students.

Due to the pandemic, the researchers have chosen to conduct this analysis on an online

platform. The researchers would still use the grade 12 students of Holy Cross College of Carigara Senior

High School Department which is located in Carigara, Leyte. It is a known fact that grade 12 students in

Holy Cross College of Carigara Senior High School are active in social media since the population consists

of today’s generation or most likely to be called Generation Z.

According to Christensson (2013) Social media is a collection of Internet-based communities that

allow users to interact with each other online. It became a popular collection of web-based technologies

used to make websites more dynamic and enable greater user interaction. It has since been fueled by

the growing use of mobile devices, such as tablets and smartphones, which are commonly used to

access social media services 2 (Christensson, 2013). On the other hand, self-esteem is a central construct

in clinical, developmental, personality, and social psychology, and its role in psychological functioning

has been studied for nearly a century (Greenier, Kernis, & Waschull, 1995). Self-esteem significance is

often exaggerated to the extent that low self-esteem is viewed as the cause of all evil and high self-

esteem as the cause of all good (Manning, Bear, & Minke, 2006). The low self-esteem person is an
individual whose global self-evaluation is neutral, whose self-concept is uncertain and confused, who is

highly susceptible to, and dependent on, external self-relevant cues, and whose social perceptions and

behaviors reflect a cautious or conservative orientation (Campbell, & Lavallee, 1993). On the other hand,

high selfesteem is more likely to be conceited, arrogant, or occasionally narcissistic. They expect to

receive positive evaluations from others; if they are provided with negative feedback, a threatened ego

motivates them to spend personal resources on coping with the negative evaluations. Neff (2011)

pointed out that pursuit of high self-esteem can be problematic, can sometimes be counterproductive,

and may involve puffing the self-up while putting others down.

Social media has played a significant role in people's lives. Moreover, people use it as a platform

to communicate and browse with the help of the internet. The time spent on social networking sites was

mostly on Facebook (78.3%) majority of students (77.2%) spent more than 30 minutes a day (Stollack et

al., 2011). Spending 60 to 90 minutes online each day, connecting and conversing with friends or

relatives which has a striking similarity to Dunbar’s Number (Dunbar, 1992). The problem of the study of

students supporting quantitative evidence's ongoing connection of self-esteem and social media. CNN

states that teens spend an average of 9 hours a day using some sort of media (Wallace, 2015). 3

According to Seo, Houston, Knight, & Inglish (2012), the proportion of teens engaging in some form of

social media usage has increased from 55% in 2006 to 83% in 2012.

This study aims to identify the relationship between the usage of social media to the level of

self-esteem among the grade 12 students in the Holy Cross College of Carigara. This study would like to

show awareness in terms of usage on social media where they spent most of their time and its possible

consequences on lowering their self-esteem.

 The overall purpose of this study is to assess whether usage of social media can affect the self-

esteem of grade 12 students. This study intends to determine how students, who are also, social media

users’ reaction and their motives towards social networking sites. Also, to improve someone's

perspective that not all the time social media can help them just through one click, that there is more

important than surfing one's self to technologies

Statement of the Problem

This study aimed to identify the relationship between the usage of social media to the level of

self-esteem among the grade 12 students. This study is to be conducted during the second semester of

S.Y. 2021- 2022 in Holy Cross College of Carigara.

Specifically, it sought to answer the following questions:

1. What is the level of social media usage to the respondents in terms of:

1.1 Academics

1.2 Socialization

1.3 Entertainment

1.4 Informativeness

2. What is the level of self-esteem of the respondents?

3. Is there a significant relationship between the level of impact in using social media to the level of self-

esteem to the respondents?

Conceptual Framework

Social Comparison
Sociometer Theory Self-perception
Theory
Theory

Relationship of social media usage to the

level of self-esteem among the students

Figure 1: The Schematic Diagram of Theoretical and Conceptual Framework of the Study
Research hypothesis

Hypothesis 1

1.1. Positive affect of social media to self-esteem of the students are positively related.

1.2. Social media and self-esteem of the students are correlated negatively with negative affect.

Hypothesis 2

Hypothesis 2.1. Social media use is negatively correlated with self-esteem.

Hypothesis 2.2. Social media use is negatively correlated with satisfaction with life.

Hypothesis 2.3. Social media use is negatively related to positive effect.

Hypothesis 2.4. Social media use is positively related to negative effect.

Hypothesis 3

The effects of social media to user’s self-esteem will change based on demographic

characteristics.

Hypothesis 4

The relationship between the user’s positive and negative affect and social media use will

change based on demographic characteristics.

Definition of Terms

The following terms are defined conceptually:

Influence- the capacity to have an effect on the character, development, or behavior of

someone or something, or the effect itself (Kundu, 2016).

Self-esteem – it is the understanding a person creates of his or her worth, based on emotions

and beliefs about how he or she fits into or performs in any given situation in life and self-

esteem is a fluid idea and can change frequently (Kim, 2015).

Social media- it is a collection of Internet based communities that allow users to interact with

each other online (Christensson, 2013).

Significance of the study

The results of the study will be beneficial to the following:

This will serve the students as an evaluation to adjust if it affects the motivations and

performance in school. It will serve as the basis and awareness for students to understand the effects

and impact of social media to the self-esteem and it will also make the students adjust and make

reflections on how students should act as a responsible individual.

 Parents will be able to find out the impact of social media usage on the self-esteem effects in a

child's performance in school and take action on what may work best. The results may serve as an eye

opener in educating and evaluating the behavior of the child.

Teachers will be able to know what may be the factors affecting the performance of the

learners. This includes the academic and behavior of the students in their academic performance.

Teachers will be aware of the student’s ability in their self-esteem using social media.

Scope and Delimitation of the Study

This study focused on the relationship of using social media to the level of self - esteem among

the grade 12 students in Holy Cross College of Carigara campus. It aims to identify the relationship

between the levels of impact of using social media to the level of self - esteem among the grade 12

senior high students during the School Year 2021-2022. This centered on how students handle their

situation in terms of academic, social, and psychological disturbances.

This study was delimited to grade 12 senior high students of Holy Cross College of Carigara. The

impact of usage of social media might affects the lower self-esteem of some students and the other

student rapid advancement of media technology has a great impact on the way of communicating on a

daily basis.

The concept of self-esteem can be stable; it can take time to develop for some students while it

can change with trends and daily events for others. One of the inherent limitations of the study was that

the respondents answered the questions given by the researchers. So the results of the research depend

upon the integrity and truthfulness of the subjects.