Or even because, while trying to preserve our self-esteem, it actually weakens it.

FORBES: Why You Should Take The Blame

Fortunately there are some things we can do to take back our self-esteem from the ravages of social media.

FORBES

So in my mind, my house was being a female, and looking at what females, you know, what our choices were and how, you know, we needed to work on our self-esteem.

NPR: Queen Latifah on 'Trav'lin' Light'

We can see that regardless of why our own mate left, there was nothing about it that should wipe out our self-esteem and there wasn't necessarily anything we could have done that would have saved our relationship.

CNN: We care that Aniston's getting married. Why?

We start blaming others at an early age, usually to escape parental anger and punishment, but also to preserve our own self-esteem and self-image.

FORBES: Why You Should Take The Blame

Once we've taken care of those, we can attend to our craving for love and companionship, and then on to our desire for self-esteem and, finally, to our need for what Maslow called self-actualization.

WSJ: Why Modern Innovation Traffics in Trifles

Facebook isn't alone, of course, in offering this seductive fantasy of a radically transparent digital society in which our self esteem is determined by our updates, tweets and check-ins.

CNN: Opinion: Facebook threatens to 'Zuck up' the human race

We said we were building children's self-esteem so they could be successful, but it never occurred to us that giving kids what psychologists call "cheap self-esteem" could do more harm than good by making our kids think they're 10-feet tall and bulletproof when they're neither.

CNN: Commentary: Joe, Kanye, Serena -- aren't they special?

Although some modern scholars drive past the notion of evil and instead explain Hitler's conduct as a reflection of his childhood and self-esteem issues, for most survivors of the 20th century he is confirmation of our instinctive sense that evil does exist.

CNN: The necessary evil?