The Happiness Effect: How Social Media Is Driving A Generation To
Appear Perfect At Any Cost

Product Description

Sexting Cyberbullying Narcissism People-and especially the media-are consumed by fears about the effect of social media on young people We hear constantly about the dangers that lurk online & about young people's seemingly pathological desire to share anything & everything about themselves with the entire world Donna Freitas has traveled the country talking to college students about what's really happening on social media What she finds is that while we focus on the problems that make headlines we are ignoring the seemingly mundane but much more widespread problems that occur every day Young people she shows feel enormous pressure to look happy all the time-and not just basically content but blissful ecstatic inspiring & successful in their personal professional & academic lives-regardless of how they actually feel Of course these young adults are not that happy at least not all of the time & the constant exposure to the seemingly perfect lives of other people on social media only makes them feel worse What's more far from wanting to share everything about themselves they are terrified of sharing something that will come back to haunt them later in life The rise of social media has brought about a dramatic cultural shift the need to curate a perfect identity online that often has little to do with reality The consequences Freitas shows can be very real Drawing on an online survey & in-person interviews with students from thirteen campuses around the US Freitas offers a window into the social media generation & how they use Facebook Snapchat & Twitter & other online platforms She presents fascinating insights about how these people are consciously creating alternate identities for themselves while also suffering from the belief that the other people they encounter online really are as perfect as their profiles appear This is an eye-opening look at the real world of social media today