Abstract:

Social media has been used to communicate with people worldwide, but recently, with technology advancement it becomes a way of expressing and reflecting personal life online. It provides incredible tools to create personal accounts that can be easily viewed by others. This way may lead them to be exposed to inappropriate interference and judgment from others. Undoubtedly, that may have a serious impacts on their feelings and how they evaluate themselves. This is not the only side of the coin. Social media is a source of inspiration. People are gathering to share their thoughts, interest and achievements. Indeed, the use of social media differs from one person to another. It could range from active use to passive use of it. Therefore, its effect could be positive or negative. The objective of this research is of two-folds: 1) to investigate the different categories of social media users and 2) explore how social media affect their self-esteem. To achieve the research objectives, multi-methods approach is employed 1) intensive systematic literature review and 2) a questionnaire will be distributed amongst different social media users to elicit their feedback on how the social media impact their self-esteem. The result reveals that there are seven categories of social media users which are creators, conversationalists, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and in-actives users. The self-esteem of all categories of social media users was high. For that reason, the use of social media has positive effect on self-esteem.