Sadness and Anhedonia in the World of Social Media

Growing up in the early 2000s, I am not unfamiliar with the role social media has played in shaping my behaviour. There have been countless moments that I have gone on my phone intending to check a text or respond to an email and unconsciously ended up on Twitter or Instagram instead. Even writing these first two sentences required a pause to check my social media feed. Social media is increasingly addictive. Both through its ability to allow users to feel a part of a community and through the dopamine rush driven by ‘likes’ and comments (Seymour 52). Social media can also make people feel overwhelmingly unhappy and dissatisfied. Through this false sense of community, users are left comparing their online success to that of people they do not even know. Social media platforms manipulate user’s feelings of sadness and anhedonia by presenting a utopian world in which everyone else is prettier, thinner and happier than they are. The result of this is lack of self-esteem, lowered sexual desire and general dissatisfaction with one’s life, opening a window for targeted advertisements to offer material solutions.

Richard Seymour explains the addictive nature of social media platforms in the chapter “We Are All Addicts” from The Twittering Machine. He theorizes that social media provides a similar dopamine release as gambling as he writes “their machinery generates regular hits in the form of ‘likes’, with flashing red notifications administering the same high that a slot-machine addict gets when three bells line up” (Seymour 52). Gaining likes offers the same rush as winning money, but instead of financial compensation, it is physical and emotional validation. Seymour later adds that Marketing Professor Adam Alter argues that through the invention of the like button users are continuously gambling every time they share a post (Seymour 64). Similar to gambling, social media platforms require users to share information about themselves to gain likes in return; the more personal and vulnerable the post, the higher the number of potential likes.

The consequences of this addiction are innumerable. Comedian Stewart Lee describes it as a state of surveillance of gullible volunteers (Seymour 86). Even those who do not live under the public light offer the best possible version of their personal lives online for public criticism. One of the primary consequences is the overwhelming depletion of self-esteem. An article published in the Epoch Times explains how social media affects the self-esteem of its users. The author writes “similar to gambling, the “wins” on social media—when people like posts or write glowing comments—can raise self-esteem. But this is not stable ground on which to base a sense of self-worth” (Fakkert 2019). Users are moving further and further away from their own identities in pursuit of their online image to gain likes. Social media platforms create unrealistic expectations of human bodies and lifestyles that real people cannot live up to and it takes an emotional toll. An article published by the Child Mind Institute explains this experience as “duck syndrome”. On the surface, social media users highlight this perfect existence through their social media postings, but underwater their feet are working frantically to stay afloat (Jacobson, Child Mind Institute). This was particularly prevalent in young adults who commit suicide, their online presence highlights a very put together lifestyle, but behind the digital curtain they are struggling mentally (Jacobson, Child Mind Institute). The desire to look happy, beautiful and sexy becomes more important than the desire to feel that way and the pressure the fulfill these online expectations simply becomes too overwhelming. Seymour explains this in his chapter “We Are All Celebrities” concerning the ex-Instagram model Essena O’Neill. In 2015, O’Neill quit Instagram explaining that all her posts we’re manufactured and corporately sponsored. Her carefree and highly desired lifestyle was a front for painful work and emotional turmoil (Seymour 84). In pursuit of the ‘perfect image’, she stopped being able to enjoy her life beyond her phone screen. Instead, she simply became a vessel used to disseminate advertisements and exploit other users into buying into this utopia.

Contradictory to this, social media also has an increasing demand for authenticity. Seymour explains this as he writes “in the social industry, this desire for authenticity has become much more urgent. The language of the internet is built around the fear of fake” (Seymour 89). In response to mainstream beauty standards, the Instagram trends of body positivity and no make-up became more prevalent, but the traditional beauty standards never really faded away. Social media users are then caught in this paradox of perfection and authenticity, but to be one completely negates the other. It creates a world that offers no emotional relief. Presenting a completely unattainable goal that no one will ever have access to.

This lack of self-esteem is then transformed into an inability to feel pleasure. One example, explained by Seymour, is the loss of sexual drive. Seymour explains that since the rise of social media platforms, young people are having far less sex, despite the increase of sexual liberation online (Seymour 56). Seymour also noted that a study showed that one in ten people check their phone during sex (Seymour 53). An article published in Thrive Global outlines how social media can lead to a decreased sex drive. The article explains that with the growing relationships online, users are faced with the constant comparison with others that distort perceptions of both themselves and their partners. The author writes “the shame of feeling ‘not enough; it can cause us to isolate ourselves or create distance to reduce discomfort. So instead of seeking real intimacy, we seek social media likes” (SheKnows, 2018). This lack of self-worth leads to a clear lack of ability to experience pleasure, particularly sexually, due to unrealistic body image expectations.

These social consequences are particularly beneficial to advertising agencies and media conglomerates. Along with corporate sponsorship from social media influencers, media platforms can also target ads based on profiling and data collection. Seymour writes “Facebook piously claims that it doesn’t sell user data, but the idea was to use the data to quantify, manipulate and sell user attention” (Seymour 49). Facebook and social media platforms alike have the tools to analyze user data and create profiles to sell to advertisers to better target consumers. An article published in the Washington Post discusses how pharmaceutical companies can target ads for specific drugs based on medical information shared on social media pages. Beyond this, these advertisements are targeting users based on what size pair of jeans they buy or what food they order with weight loss treatments (Tiku 2020). Social media cultivates a space where users feel inadequate in their everyday lives, whether it be through their physical appearance, their lifestyle or their financial situation, advertisers pinpoint those insecurities and exploit them. Now every insecurity, every anxiety, could be rectified with the purchase of the perfect concealer or the downloading of an app to tracks calorie intake. All of the user’s feelings of defectiveness, anhedonia, depression that are fostered by social media platforms are then categorized and capitalized upon.

To conclude, social media platforms are framed as a means of connecting users and creating a space where people can share and communicate. To an extent, social media offers this function. However, it does so at the cost of extreme isolation from both the outside world and one’s own identity. Engaging in social media requires both a presentation of a largely fabricated version of oneself, while still forfeiting personal details for capital gain to remain authentic. Social media is an inescapable paradox of perfection and truthfulness, through which one attempts to gain attention online must lose the ability to connect in person. It fosters a world in which no one will ever reach their goals, the only people who do find success are those capitalizes on other’s insecurities.

Work Cited

Fakkert, June. “The Dark Side of Social Media: How It Affects Self-Esteem.” Www.theepochtimes.com, 18 Feb. 2020, www.theepochtimes.com/the-dark-side-of-social-media-how-it-affects-self-esteem_2852694.html.

Jacobson, Rae. “Social Media and Self-Esteem: Impact of Social Media on Youth.” Child Mind Institute, childmind.org/article/social-media-and-self-doubt/.

Seymour, Richard. “We Are All Addicts” The Twittering Machine. The Indigo Press, 2018.

Seymour, Richard. “We Are All Celebrities” The Twittering Machine. The Indigo Press, 2018.

SheKnows. “Here's How Social Media Could Be Killing Your Sex Drive.” Thrive Global, 26 Nov. 2018, thriveglobal.com/stories/social-media-technology-relationships-hurting-sex-drive/.

Tiku, Nitasha. “Facebook Has a Prescription: More Pharmaceutical Ads.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 4 Mar. 2020, www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/03/facebook-pharma-ads/.