[Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash]
March 13, 2026 (Friday) – Kaylyn Tu
In the post-COVID pandemic years of extreme globalization, social media has since been further amplified as the social bridge that connects Gen Z and Alpha`s worldwide through fleeting trends and platforms, with around 94% of Gen Z reported to use social media daily in 2025, and YouTube and TikTok dominating 83% of users.
Within the aspect of social media, it is no surprise that when a person posts something online, they expect some kind of acknowledgment of their post. The likes gradually increase through exposure and connections, where a human's hardwired reward system triggers that “need” for further rises of dopamine every time you anticipate a new notification.
Now, that rising dopamine you feel scrolling through your favorite platforms is actually caused by the way social media algorithms are designed. Similar to slot machines, social media offers you rewards at unpredictable moments, causing users to compulsively want more as dopamine levels rise abruptly. However, once that validation is fueled by the vast platform of social media into mass numbers, the expectation for more becomes, unfortunately, nearly inevitable.
Although this doesn’t apply to everyone, around 1 in 7 teens worldwide experience it. You might not notice it at first, but as you scroll back to your most recent post, you might feel a pang of disappointment that there are fewer likes than normal. The overfixation, if extended consistently, can silently harm a teen’s psychological well-being, fostering fragile self-worth and addictions tied to fleeting dopamine rises of popularity.
But why do people seek validation? This inquiry leads us back to the primitive nature of being a human. People are social creatures, and it’s almost biologically impossible for us to be nurtured without connections. Based on Jim Rohn’s theory of personal environment, which states that every individual is the average of the top five people they spend the most time with, humans are naturally inclined to behave alike. Which is why conformity—the tendency to change our perceptions, opinions, or behaviors in ways consistent with group norms—is a highly studied psychological factor that links human behavior to our inclination to fit in. Thus, conformity develops from a survival mechanism, where expulsion of one's tribe often led to death, into the amplified internalization of norms due to social media's reward systems.
Building on the idea that validation runs innate, statistical models demonstrate who is prone to its impacts. A quantitative breakdown shows that while 88% of Dutch adolescents experience almost no change in self-esteem from social‑media use, 4% received high fluctuations, and 8% suffer an esteem dip, with low self-esteem teens mainly accounting for the high fluctuation group. Essentially, the Vulkenburg study highlights how people with an initially low self-esteem may receive higher confidence swings from validation than people with higher self-esteem.
Furthermore, low self-esteem doesn't just impact your life; it also affects the people around you, even if you don't notice it. Between 43.6% and 54.2% of adolescents who feel pressured to get likes, comments, and views on their posts have reported lower friendship closeness a few months afterward. The article shows that pressure to gain attention on social media tends to predict a decline in real‑world friendship intimacy. Ultimately, insecurity stems from the lack of confidence one perceives in oneself, and many believe online validation instantly cures insecurity, where popularity is treated as a merit-based system, and more is better.
But in truth, how can you scream confidence when you are conforming to the crowd just to receive an extra nod? True confidence isn't you at your highest; it's the times you quietly embraced your offline, shameless, and unapproved self. And as we steadily approach the resolution to how we can nurture self-confidence without social media dependency, a set of wise words is here for anyone stuck.
Dr. Mengya Zhao, a lecturer in Clinical Psychology, covered the significance of what a person does in their free time and how it affects their sense of identity and value. She stated that well-suited leisure activities can give teenagers a stronger sense of individuality, and despite how excessive need for validation can be mentally damaging in the long run, it is perfectly fine to confine when clear boundaries are made between yourself and who you're confining to be.
Kaylyn Tu
