Facebook Enhances Self-Esteem, Study Finds

And if you need even stronger self-esteem, try to view your @mentions in Flipboard on Apple iPad. That rocks!

A post from Psycology today by Adoree Durayappah, MAPP has the whole story. Here is a part:

Feeling down in the dumps and want to feel better? Log into Facebook and view your profile. Want to feel even better? Try editing your profile. A new study published in the February issue of Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking found that viewing and editing your Facebook profile could boost yourself-esteem.

Remember the skit "Daily Affirmation With Stuart Smalley" on "Saturday Night Live"? Smalley -- with his well-coiffed blond hair and smart, pastel cardigan -- would begin his televised self-help show by gazing into the mirror and reciting, "I'm good enough I'm smart enough. And doggone it, people like me!"

Oh, poor Stuart. If he only had a Facebook profile back then -- it would have been so much easier to boost his self-esteem. And if he were aware of the latest research on self-perception he would have realized that because of Objective Self-Awareness theory, looking in the mirror can actually decrease self-esteem instead of enhancing it.

Objective Self-Awareness theory suggests that humans view the self as both a subject and an object. When we view ourselves as the subject, we are actively experiencing events: walking to the store, eating a sandwich or taking a shower. However, when we reflect on our own consciousness, we become the object of the experience by focusing on the self. As soon as we start thinking about the self, we become the object of our thoughts. When we do this, we can think of the self positively or negatively.
Research suggests that when we are in this state of "objective self-awareness," we have a tendency to have a downgraded rating of the self. The reason for the drop is that when we are self-aware, we tend to make comparisons to social standards and often can feel we fall short of these standards.
There are many tools that we can use to prompt objective self-awareness. It could be a photo of ourselves, a video camera pointing to us, or a mirror. These objects cause us to view ourselves as we think others are viewing us. Even if no one is viewing us at that moment, we still feel as if under observation. Studies have shown that this results in a drop in self-esteem because we become more sensitive to the fact that others could be viewing us in a negative light.
So if photos, video cameras, and mirrors create objective self-awareness, what effect would one's Facebook profile have? One theory is that exposure to one's Facebook profile leads to decreased self-esteem because it prompts objective self-awareness, just like looking into a mirror. That makes perfect sense, but there is an alternative theory that suggests the reverse effect.
According to the Hyperpersonal Model, the internet allows users to selectively self-present themselves. While editing our Facebook profile, we take care to select what comments and images make our wall, and what items should be deleted or untagged. Over time we can incorporate this online positive image of our selves into our self-conceptions.