Facebook is the largest social networking site of this generation and the largest factor in judging someone's worth, according to a recent study.
Michael A. Stefanone, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the department of communication, and his colleagues, conducted a study last spring to observe how social networking behaviors were linked with concepts of self-worth. His study, which was published in Cyberpsychology journal, took a sample of 311 college-age students and observed their social networking habits.
Stefanone's study suggests that females who base their self-worth on their appearance tend to post more photos of themselves online, and have larger networks on social networking sites such as Facebook.
"People have a range of conditions in which they base their self-esteem and self-worth," Stefanone said. "Appearance is particularly relevant for Facebook behavior considering how many photos people share online. We found that women are more likely to base their self-worth on their appearance, and that those who did shared more photos online than anyone else in the study."
Other aspects of Stefanone's study examined how the stronger "offline" relationships often correlated to larger and stronger online social networks. The study showed that although females held larger social networks, their relationships often were much stronger than those of their male counterparts.
"I am a person that likes to look nice, but I could honestly care less about sharing photos of myself online," said Jacquie Krajnik, a junior accounting major at Canisius College. "I could care less about getting comments or ‘likes' on photos of myself. The opinions that truly matter to me are of people I actually associate myself with in real life, not some random guy on Facebook who has a picture of himself shirtless standing in a mirror as his profile picture."
The study showed that while both males and females more closely associated their self-worth with more private sectors of their lives, such as religion, virtue, and family support, females reported placing significantly more importance on aspects of appearance and approval of others.
"Most women are looking to others to feel better about themselves so they post tons of pictures of themselves and sort of feed off of that," said Cassandra Snyder, a junior biomedical sciences and psychology major. "It makes women feel good about themselves to know that they are sort of envied."
The results of Stefanone's study were strengthened by a poll conducted by The Spectrum. Out of a sampling of 30 college and graduate student age females, over 90 percent of the participants agreed that, in general, females who base their self-worth on appearance have more "friends" and post more pictures of themselves.
However, in the same poll, over 63 percent of the participants identified themselves as being an exception to Stefanone's study, saying that their number of friends and pictures on their own Facebook did not correlate to their personal sense of worth based on appearance.
"I believe that people should be comfortable with how they look and others will accept them for who they are," said Kayla Snell, a senior math major. "My friends are my friends because they know that how someone looks doesn't change who they are on the inside."
Regardless of personal discrepancies, Stefanone's study does give evidence of a strong relationship between the online social tendencies of females and how much the female's self-worth is based on appearance. The fact that this relationship still exists is surprising considering all of advances towards more equal opportunities for women, according to Stefanone.
"Sites like Facebook give us the opportunity to participate in mass media systems like never before," Stefanone said. "These results…show that stereotypical gender differences in terms of self-esteem and self-worth persist today."
Email: news@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
