Social Media: Impact on Human Feelings and Emotions

Abstract

This paper is a conceptual paper which presents the study on the effect of social media use towards human feelings. Social media has become a prevalent part of modern life, with users using various platforms to communicate and interact with others. The use of social media has been widely permeated throughout all age groups in the past decade, becoming an integral aspect of people's lives. People also rely on social media as it has a significant impact on their feelings. The purpose of this concept paper is to understand (i) how social media influences human feelings, (ii) how social media develops positive feelings, and (iii) how social media develop negative feelings. This concept paper applied the uses and gratification theory, which is related to the main purpose of this study since the theory discusses the effects of media on people and explains why and how people use specific media to satisfy their needs. The method used for this concept paper is a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) which is based on previous journal articles that focus on the influence of social media on positive and negative feelings. A study has found that age and stress are strong predictors of social media use, with the relationship being positive in young adults (25–34 years old) but negative in older people (35– 54 years old). Moreover, some studies have shown that social media can be helpful in dealing with emotions, whereas others suggest it may lead to increased anxiety and stress. However, all of these findings support the idea that social media has a powerful impact on human feelings and emotions.