The International Journal of Indian Psychology

ISSN 2348-5396 (Online) | ISSN: 2349-3429 (Print)

Volume 11, Issue 4, October- December, 2023
DIP: 18.01.144.20231104, DOI: 10.25215/1104.144
[Link]
Research Paper

To Study the Addiction of Validation in Teenagers

Madhuja Kasture1*, Dr. Pratibha Mehetre2

ABSTRACT
In the current study, the researcher has studied the addiction of validation in teenagers. It
focuses on people pleasing behaviour, seeking validation on social media and gender
differences for addiction of validation. The study was done on the age group from 13 to 19.
The data was collected through internet. The range of data collection was worldwide. To
support the purpose of the paper, the data includes various online researches, articles and
websites. The results are according to internet. The result is shown there is supporting the
objectives. It examined the validation seeking behaviour from social media. There are many
factors and reasons that can affect this behaviour of teenagers. Peer pressure is one of the
reasons. Teens do get pressurise by their teens and sometimes even post things online that
they don’t want to. According to second objective which studies if girls seek more validation
than boys. And they do want validation from boys because of their rigid mindset, their
upbringing, experiences of world and their dilemma.

Keywords: Addiction, Validation, Teenagers

A
ccording to WHO, teens or the term teenage indicates a child aged between 13 to 19.
Then word teen is used as suffix from the numbers. It’s a transitional stage for
physical and psychological development and health. At this age the child starts to
become aware of him/her and the world too. They try to find their identity as they are
curious about themselves too. They want to do everything what their friends or peers do.
They want to look good and cool in front of their friends. They always want to fit in and be
in a group. So, they seek for validation from people out there, like friends, classmates, peers.
More like they try to live their life on other people terms. As we all know the entire teenager
spend most of the time on the social media. In this age they tend to think parents as their
enemies. So, to escape from this, they find the good option as social media. By posting
different photos, stories or life updates like morning routine, breakfast, way to college,
where they have snacks, studies, clothing, shopping etc. Each and every little update is
posted online, and they have a weird satisfaction when they get a lot of likes and comments.
And then they keep doing the same things cause that likes and comments feels like
validation to them. It’s like an approval that whatever they are doing is getting accepted.

1
Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, MGM University
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, MGM University, Aurangabad
*Corresponding Author
Received: October 5, 2023; Revision Received: November 23, 2023; Accepted: November 25, 2023
© 2023, Kasture, M. & Mehetre, P.; licensee IJIP. This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms
of the Creative Commons Attribution License ([Link]/licenses/by/2.0), which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
 To Study the Addiction of Validation in Teenagers

Addiction
According Alyssa (2021), the term addiction refers to the activity or condition in which a
person is unable to stop the particular substance or activity even though it can cause any
psychological or physical harm. Addiction does only refer to substance addiction like
smoking or drugs but it also indicates to some repeated behaviour or activities like eating,
working, social media, gambling. According to the American society of addiction medicine
“a treatable chronic medical disease involving complex interactions among brain circuits,
genetics and environment and an individual’s life experience. People with addiction use
substance or engage in behaviours that become compulsive and often continue despite
harmful consequences.” Many people involve in addiction of any substance or activity
voluntarily and out of curiosity but later they lose the self-control and get addicted to that
particular thing. If addiction person in family have any addiction then the whole family goes
through lots of problems. When a person gets uneasy or not able to concentrate on his work
without any particular substance or thing then it’s a starting that he is getting addicted to that
substance or thing.

Validation
According to Marc (2015), validation is defined as the act or process of making something
or someone approved or acceptable. When it comes to addiction of validation, it includes the
feeling that the other people approve and accept you. It’s a human tendency that we want
approvals or compliments from other persons that can be your family, friends, society and
social media. We like to hear good words about ourselves, so somewhere these validations
satisfy us. When we don’t get an approval or acceptance about something, we try to change
it but the change is not always for good. It can might alter and affect your personality. In
teens this validation is really an addiction because they want everyone to approve them, their
lifestyle, their clothing, their thoughts etc. But if they don’t get this from their family or
friends, they start posting each and everything about them and their life on social media.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
According to Ahmad (2021), social media is good as it connects us with our family and
gives us all the new information and products but it can turn into disaster if we just start to
crave for likes and comments. In his research he gave various reasons about why these
youngsters need validation on social media. The biggest reason behind it could be FOMO,
fear of missing out syndrome. According to Gladwell, FOMO involves the fear that people
around you are having fun, doing something extraordinary and you are missing it out. So
usually teens put up all the information about what they are doing on social media. The other
reason is insecurities, doubt and anxiety. Whenever a teens posts a photo, until and unless
they don’t get as much likes they wanted they will very anxious. They are often insecure
about things like, why does that person have more followers than I do? Or why did she have
more likes then mine got? It can also lead to ruining relationships between two persons.

According to Lauran (2018), wanting approval isn’t a bad thing until it’s excessive and starts
to affects your mood which can lead to anxiety or depression. Teens want approval which
itself is not a bad thing. It helps them to keep going and gives them motivation. But if you
are only doing it to get an approval from someone then you should stop. Many girls get
dressed so that people call them pretty and compliment them even though they doesn’t like
that dress or style at all. Because of these validations, they try to live their life on others
term.

© The International Journal of Indian Psychology, ISSN 2348-5396 (e)| ISSN: 2349-3429 (p) | 1597
 To Study the Addiction of Validation in Teenagers

According to Dr. Preeti (2022), emotional validation involves understandings and

acceptance of others feelings. When teenagers receive this kind of validation, they feel like
not only their emotions are seen but also getting acceptance. But if they don’t get this type of
validation, if their emotions are not heard or not understood, they might feel left out,
unsupported and isolated. Over period of time, these feelings might trigger insecurities and
that teen can lack from self-validation and turn into validation addicts. She further explains
that there can different reasons for craving validation. The reasons are like low self-esteem,
normal emotional development and in extreme cases presence of mental ill.

METHODOLOGY
The data gathered for this research was collected globally through internet. It includes
various online articles, researches and websites.

Sample
The selected age group for this research was teenager, which is 13 to 19 years old. The
collected data is of teenagers in different countries and every country has different culture,
society and environment. Even the parenting styles are different.

Objectives
1. To study the validation seeking from social media.
2. To examine if girl need more validation than boys.
3. To investigate the effects of peer pressure for getting addiction of validation.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

The finding supports the objectives. According to the objectives, it was a study to examine if
teenagers seek validation from internet. And according to the results they do. Wanting
validation is not a bad thing but if you are doing the things to get the validation then you are
addicted to it. Now the question is why does teen seek validation from social media or why
do they need this validation? Social media have a big impact on teenagers. It’s a big part of
their life too. They post every update, every achievement everything they do on social
media. They are very concerned about their image on social media.

In a study conducted by UCLA, showed that teenagers react to likes the same way they
react after winning a prize. The amount of likes they get has huge impact on them. They
constantly keeps comparing themselves to the all those social media influencers, models or
actors/actresses. They forget the fact that social media is not a real world and try to be like
them. They try various filters to look good. These teens try to copy each and every thing like
clothes, shoes, makeup. They post different photos of themselves on internet and the more
likes they get the more they feel like getting approval from people. This approval gives them
the sense of accomplishment which keeps them hooked up to the social media. There are
many reasons behind it like Insecurities, anxiety and doubt. According to a common sense
(children, teens, media and body image) survey, there are 35% people are worried about
people tagging them in unattractive photos. 27% feel stress about how do they look in
photos. 22% felt bad if their photo is ignored.

According to Jonathan (2016), teenagers keep comparing themselves to others which lead to
self-doubt and to the endless questioning storm. They constantly keep thinking about the
things they post, they likes they get. They doubt about what if people don’t like my post?
What if I don’t get the likes? How he / she can get this much likes? This constant
comparison leads to jealousy. They can be jealous of their friends, classmates and
© The International Journal of Indian Psychology, ISSN 2348-5396 (e)| ISSN: 2349-3429 (p) | 1598
 To Study the Addiction of Validation in Teenagers

sometimes siblings also. If they get any negative feedback on their post it affects them on
huge scale. It can have adverse effect on their mental health. Peer pressure is one of the
factors. Due to this pressure teens creates online accounts and post stuff online even if they
don’t want to. The second objective is the gender difference. The results are supporting to
the objective. Girls need more validation than boys. There are many reasons behind it. The
rigid mindset has a huge impact on girls. Since the birth, even as a growing up, girls are
brainwashed that somewhere then are less or weaker than boys. They are on secondary place
than boys. The socio-economic mental condition of girls during their upbringing has a major
role. Society prefers girls to purse finer arts than engineering and sciences. They are in
consequential confusion, about themselves, about what to do and what not to do? What to
wear?. They are constantly hammered by their parents or society about their looks, cloths.
Due to all these reasons, they want validation from society for their every work or stuff.

Limitations to study
1. This data is limited to a specific age group. It only focuses on teenagers. Even
though this addiction of validation can be seen throughout all age groups.
2. The data was collected only through internet.

Implication of the study

1. Promoting the importance of positive self-talk which improves self-esteem. It will
lead to positive self-validation.
2. Talking to teenagers while they are going through puberty. Try telling them the risky
and dark side of social media.
3. Every school should have a positive psychology subject. Or should appoint a
counsellor. So that teenagers should know how fight with their insecurities and self-
doubt.

CONCLUSION
All the gathered data is supporting to the objectives. The addiction of validation can have
adverse effect on teenager’s mental health. This age is their developing age, in the future
they have a personality problems or behavioural problems because of this constantly seeking
validation. If teenagers get introduced to positive self-talk, then they will know how to fight
with the insecurities. Even parental talking can help them a lot. This study includes
worldwide range of data which can be helpful for any further research.

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Acknowledgment
The author(s) appreciates all those who participated in the study and helped to facilitate the
research process.

Conflict of Interest
The author(s) declared no conflict of interest.

How to cite this article: Kasture, M. & Mehetre, P. (2023). To Study the Addiction of
Validation in Teenagers. International Journal of Indian Psychology, 11(4), 1596-1600.
DIP:18.01.144.20231104, DOI:10.25215/1104.144

© The International Journal of Indian Psychology, ISSN 2348-5396 (e)| ISSN: 2349-3429 (p) | 1600