the truth about media and why it's important in terms of your confidence
With covid-19, we have more opportunities to browse the media nowadays, and I think we tend to be quite vulnerable when doing so. For me, going on youtube, TikTok, instagram, etc, have created a habit of constantly comparing myself to others, lowering my self-confidence. Media can have many positive impacts on our lives and getting inspiration from different platforms is also important. Therefore, I think we should review the reality of the media and recognise our vulnerability towards it.
so what exactly is self-cofidence?
Self-confidence can often be confused with other terms such as self-esteem or self-worth. But here are the different definitions:
Self-confidence = a measure of faith in one's own abilities
Self-esteem = our sense of self
Self-worth = recognising 'I am greater than all of those things'
Self-confidence is about believing in yourself. Sometimes, having confidence in yourself can take you a long way. But having low self-confidence can have a huge impact on our mental health too. Balancing our level of confidence is key to living healthy and happily.
how does media affect our self-confidence level?
For me, my confidence is mainly affected by the media (tv, social media, magazines), though not so much by people that I know such as my friends and family. As a matter of fact, spending time with them boosts my confidence level. This is because I am surrounded by people who are authentic (showing their true-selves) and I'm sure many of you are too. Though often on media, authenticity is non-existent because it is made to attract their audience. For example, vloggers would only film footages that would seem unusual or overly glamorous because that is what the audience (we) are expecting. I know this could seem quite obvious, but I have been extremely vulnerable that I used to (maybe still) believe that what is shown on these media is completely authentic and i'm sure many of you are having the same misunderstanding too. I used to watch reality tv shows or scroll through instagrams of celebrities and think "why am I not like them" and beat myself up for no reason.
But now I've realised the superficiality of media (people tend to only think about social media but it is also important to apply this to other media such as tv and newspaper), and started to use the information on it effectively. I need to clarify that I am not criticising the media, I am just reviewing the accurate way to view it what's presented on them. In short, my point is that what you see on media isn't always the truth and there are parts that are not necessarily presented.
resources to do with this topic:
⬇a podcast episode with a past contestant of Love Island talking about her experience and how being on reality tv affected her confidence
⬇false confidence [a song about media affecting self-confidence]
⮕[and the deconstruction of the song]
Comentarios