A recent paper written by professors at the Columbia Business
School and the University of Pittsburgh found a correlation
between self-esteem and lack of self-control in people who use
social networks, specifically Facebook. According to the paper,
users who have strong ties to their Facebook friends and spend
more time on Facebook are less likely to exhibit self-control,
as demonstrated by lower credit scores and higher debt levels.
According to the paper, “Are Close Friends the Enemy? Online
Social Networks, Self-Esteem, and Self-Control,” after browsing
their Facebook profile, participants with a greater number of
strong ties were more likely to experience an increase in self-
esteem, simply because they care more about the opinion of those
ties. That bump in self-esteem, though, led to a drop in self-
control. The authors, Keith Wilcox, assistant professor of
marketing at Columbia Business School, and Andrew Stephen,
assistant professor of business administration at the University
of Pittsburgh, referred to