SOCIAL MEDIA AND ITS IMPACT ON PSYCHOLOGY OF WORKING WOMEN

Abstract: The paper titled ‘Social media and its impact on Psychology of working women’ analyses the effect of media on women, on their choices and also self- perception. In recent times, especially due to Covid and the subsequent lockdown most of the people took to social media to pass their time. This led to many famous trends on social media and the online sales raised as compared to before. There were many research studies published during this time that pointed to mental trauma across the ages. The previous studies pointed to women being affected by social media and made their decisions based on them. It also caused anxiety and stress. Some women even had to take some help to cope up with this. The researchers wanted to study this trend and to find if the media affect health, perceptions, relations of working women. This study concentrates on working women especially related to teaching and training.  The study was conducted using a Likert scale questionnaire sent to 100 working women. The questions were asked to find if their choice was based on different social media platforms and how many and which social media platforms do, they use. Another important objective was to find if social media affects their self- perception and self- esteem. The hypothesis was “Working Women in Teaching profession make their choices based on the social media platforms and their self- esteem is affected by it.” The result showed that the women spent considerable time on different platforms and the result analysis showed that the working women were influenced considerably by the media. Their health and perceptions were affected moderately. The moderate effect on health both physical and mental could be because women in the study were faculty who themselves counselled many students and are aware of the negative impacts of social media. They enjoyed using social media and took advantage of it in a positive way. This points to the Uses and Gratification Theory credited to Jay Blumler and Elihu Katz’s work in 1974, the media is passive, and the users are active. The users are conscious and select the media according to their own needs rather than be passive and get influenced by the media. They rely on their knowledge of their motivations to make media choices that will help them meet their specific wants and needs. The result also showed the same trend that the sample of working women were educated, and they demonstrated an awareness of the use of social media and restricted it by not allowing it to influence facets of health, perception and relationships. But a major influence is witnessed when it comes to shopping via social media platforms.

Key Words: Social- Media, working women, self- perception, gender, influence