Ever since Twitter became popular and everybody logged on to Facebook, we’ve been seeing a trend in celebrities showing some outrageous behaviors. Many of the celebs who were caught acting a fool were also very prevalent on social media and new studies are suggesting that it’s actually the social media that is causing the many celeb outbursts.
Chris Brown, Rihanna, Donald Trump, Nicki Minaj, Azealia Banks, Cher, Khloe Kardashian and many many more are becoming more famous for their Twitter and social media habits than they are their careers.
The famous faces never hesitate to “pop off” on their social media sites and that behavior seems to be spilling over into the real world.
So is it just because these individuals happen to be a bit emotional and out of control? Or did social media make them that way?
According to some of the latest research by the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia Business School, Twitter and Facebook may be the ones to blame for the lack of self control that many stars exhibit these days.
In other words, once upon a time Chris Brown and Donald Trump weren’t much different than us but the evil forces of social media have caused them to lose self control while boosting their self esteem.
The research paper titled “Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online Social Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self- Control” claimed that users who are focused on how they are received by close friends tend to have a sudden self esteem boost that may at the time decrease their self control.
So all those likes, retweets, and pictures comments are apparently doing to people’s heads and causing them to feel like they are above the laws of the land and we should all kiss the very ground they walk on… sounds crazy right? But mind you this has all been backed by science.
Based on the results of the study Chris Brown’s arrogant attitude may be the direct result of Team Breezy liking and retweeting everything he posts online. Along the lines, his head got blown up and he suddenly lacked the self control that would tell him not to throw chairs into windows, jump Frank Ocean, speed through Beverly Hills, get into a club scuffle with Drake, or dye his hair blonde.
“We have demonstrated that using today’s most popular social network, Facebook, may have a detrimental affect on people’s self-control,” said coauthor of the study Andrew T. Stephen.
So what’s the secret to social media causing people to lose their self control? Apparently, it’s all in the image they are trying to portray to others.
“We find that people experience greater self-esteem when they focus on the image they are presenting to strong ties in their social networks,” said Keith Wilcox, assistant professor of marketing at Columbia Business School.
When the image they want to portray is accepted by close friends on social media, they are convinced that they can uphold that same image (whatever it may be) in every day life as well which may convince them that they don’t need to abide by the rules that everyone else may follow.
The researches are urging for more studies to be done that would focus on the affects that social media has on its users.
“It would be interesting to explore the persistence of the effect of browsing Facebook over time,” they wrote at the end of the research paper.
It certainly would be interesting considering the fact that all the social media heavy celebrities have suddenly come down with egos larger than their careers.
