Exploring the Impact of Social Media on Identity Formation
Should I post this photo? Are you sure? I feel like my stomach looks too big. Can I post this selfie, or are those no longer in? What is your username, I will tag you. Would it be strange to post a video on my main account? These are just a few of the hectic questions that pop into the heads of teenagers on a daily basis in regards to social media.
Today, nearly seventy-five percent of American teenagers from ages thirteen to seventeen have access to a smartphone. As social media continues to dramatically impact the lives of every individual, this percentage will continue to increase exponentially.
One can consider the nature of social media to be progressive. The main reason being its evolution from “small, scattered and local community websites to consolidated companies with global reach.” Social media now influences and controls every aspect of an individual’s life and teenagers are at the heart of this infiltration — however, does this infiltration into daily life lead to positive or negative outcomes for teenagers?
How Did Social Media Become a Powerhouse?
In its early days, the internet was a “static network” designed to exchange small amounts of messages between two individuals. In addition, it was designed solely for expert coders to publish and maintain information. Fast forward to today and that initial purpose has dramatically changed. Now the content being viewed is “very much our own.”
The smartphone greatly fostered the rise of social media. Rather than solely being associated with the exchange of information, the internet quickly became an escape from reality. Now with the internet at one’s fingertips, individuals can explore a wider range of topics and engage in numerous activities. Including instant communication with peers, freely expressing opinions, sharing images of one’s lifestyle and reposting creative or meaningful content.
The development of mobile technology single-handedly created the photo-sharing and video-sharing platforms in the world today. However, with the creation of these platforms, face-to-face interactions have shifted to purely online ones. Meaning, the current online existence of young individuals is increasingly becoming one that is separate from physical reality. Also much of this content is considered idealized which also adds to the escapism.
Assumptions of Social Media
When online communication technologies, such as emails and chat rooms, started to become popular in the 1990s, several writers believed that these technologies would lead to the downfall of social connectedness and well-being in adolescents. Social connectedness is defined as the relationship adolescents share with others in their environment.
During this time, two assumptions were made. The first assumption stated that the internet “motivated adolescents to form superficial online relationships with strangers that are less beneficial than their real world relationships.” While the second assumption stated that the “time spent with online strangers occurred at the expense of time spent with existing relationships.”
However, when media use changes so does the outcome. Meaning, since the 1990s, the overall purpose and function of social media has changed within these individuals. Rather than using the internet as an escape, many adolescents use it to maintain existing friendships and build personal identities. For example, in April of 2015, the Global Web Index published a report presenting the top ten reasons why individuals use social media. At number one was social and was defined as “to stay in touch with what my friends are doing.” While for identity growth, individuals require this social aspect in order to build upon their online identities. Despite the prediction of early critics, social media has proven its ability to provide a space for individuals to explore and interact with countless digital users. These users are endlessly creative and constantly coming up with new ways to present themselves and stay in touch with the growing online world.
That’s the thing with social media, there is no one or right way to use it. Rather, it presents opportunities for individuals to employ and thrive on.
Gaining a New Sense of Control
To teenagers, social media presents an escape from reality. An escape from overbearing parents, tedious homework and repetitive schedules. With just a couple clicks, teenagers can be quickly sucked into the depths of social media.
To many teenagers, this sense of freedom and control is brand new. While living at home, many experience feelings of crowdedness and over surveillance from forced isolation with parents and siblings. With nowhere to go but school and home, these teenagers face monotonous schedules. Additionally, the behaviors and surveillance from parents feel intrusive. For example, curfews and various restrictions leave many teenagers feeling oppressed. Meaning, they feel forced to walk on tightropes with expectations to act in certain ways.
However, with the introduction of social media, this negative feeling quickly transformed into a positive one. With social media, an illusion of control is extended to each individual. Teenagers are given the impression that they are able to determine with whom, how and when they interact with other peers. Also, they are left to determine whether they should or should not reveal their online identity. With these two factors, teenagers are made to feel more secure and self-assured on social media applications.
Today, as well as in the past, adults refuse to acknowledge that their children are creating separate identities. Instead, parents choose to view their children as innocent and pure for as long as possible. However, in the New Yorker Kate Eichhorn writes, “Today, young people create images and put them into circulation with the interference of adults.” Due to the control parents consistently exert over their children’s daily lives and activities, they also aim to influence their personal development and character. Often this influence is done with good intentions. After all, children emulate the behaviors of their parents. Yet, the results of overly strict behavioral requirements might not always be positive. Rather, they can suffocate the development of a child’s unique personality or inspire rebellion. Regardless of parents’ intentions however, it seems apparent that social media is providing teenagers with an outlet through which they can mold their own identities with relative freedom.
Building an Identity
After establishing a new sense of control, teenagers are able to dive head first into creating a new identity or rebuilding an old one. Through the communicative design of social media, teenagers have access to creating, posting and sharing unlimited content. With this freedom of expression, one has the ability to showcase specific aspects of their life. Examples include editing images with filters and photoshop or taking hundreds of pictures in one sitting and only posting the best one or two.
The design and functionality of social media also promotes the communicative aspect between digital users. Not only can individuals share their lives through images, but they can share their ideas, beliefs, passions and interests which contributes to the discovery and formation of an online or real world identity. Since the creation of an identity through social media involves constant interaction with other digital users, the various effects of human communication can become quite pronounced over a short period of time. One might receive tens, hundreds or even thousands of comments, messages or views on a single photograph or written message. The positive feedback can be compounded, leading to an intense and influential sense of immediate validation. While simultaneously negative feedback can compile, leading to levels of criticism that can become almost intolerable.
The visual anonymity of social media also contributes to the creation of an identity. This aspect of anonymity provides teenagers with a safe space to privately explore their identity while connecting and interacting with like-minded individuals. Through these connections, teenagers can build communities with individuals from all around the world that provide love and support. However, at the same time, social media can promote cruel behavior since there are far fewer consequences when criticizing another individual online. The visual anonymity, and in some cases the total anonymity, can give many individuals the sense that they have the freedom to say or do whatever they want to whoever they want.
Overall, defining the term identity is challenging. However, in our day and age, it relates to an individual’s presence. Meaning, it encompasses how one displays themselves to their peers physically or virtually and how one behaves or acts in relation to others.
Through this lens, social media seems to accelerate the development of a teenager’s personal identity by having the power to transform preferences and behaviors. This is due to the vast number of opinions, amount of information — whether true or false — and quantity of content that is constantly available to digital users. In addition, this content is always growing. Meaning new information and perspectives, or reiterations of old perspectives, are always changing and being added to social media platforms at incredible rates. In one sense, this could lead to more open minds and engagement about a variety of topics. However, it could simultaneously lead to a situation in which no identity is ever fully settled upon.
Blurring the Lines Between Disinformation and Misinformation
As stated in the “Assumptions of Social Media” Section, the Global Web Index published a report in 2015 presenting the top ten reasons why individuals use social media. It is worth noting that number two on that list is staying up-to-date with news and current events. However, with the “peer-to-peer dissemination of content” that occurs on a daily basis with social media, relying on this type of information has become difficult.
Before going further, we should take a minute to define disinformation and misinformation. Disinformation is “content purposefully shaped to mislead.” While misinformation is “false or misleading material that is shared without deceitful purpose.” However, with the new spread of ideas and beliefs on social media platforms, the distinction between disinformation and misinformation has vanished.
It has been human nature to blindly adopt the beliefs from the testimony of one’s peers. This is evident in the fact that humans learn from peers, parents, teachers, books, articles and websites. In the process of deciding what pieces to believe and what pieces to avoid, individuals take into account the perceived trustworthiness of their peers. Meaning, humans are more likely to accept information shared by a friend or trusted peer than from someone they do not know. However, with this learning approach, the door has quickly opened for the spread of false beliefs. Now on social media, it has become increasingly more difficult to accurately determine the intentions and accuracy of information, regardless of who is communicating it.
Sadly, teenagers are at the center of this problem. An important aspect of identity is the beliefs, opinions and interpretations one obtains and then utilizes outside of the digital screen. However, one small piece of false information today can be immediately spread far and wide to thousands, even millions of people. This can then lead to the creation of a false identity in the sense that teenagers are constructing their identities based on information that is misleading, exaggerated and often entirely untrue. With a looming presence of falsehood, online perspectives can begin to clash with real world views which creates a sense of dissonance for the developing teenager.
Shining a Light on Body Dysmorphia
According to the Pew Research Center in 2018, fifty-nine percent of teenagers reported that they have been bullied or harassed online. While in a 2019 Google Survey, teachers reported that cyberbullying is the number one safety concern in their classrooms.
The data above is not meant to overwhelm you but instead shine a light on the pressing issue of cyberbullying. Even though there are a variety of forms that cyberbullying can take, body dysmorphia is the most pressing concern for teenagers, especially teenage girls.
Body dysmorphia is defined as the fixation on imperfections. Individuals who struggle with body dysmorphia constantly possess obsessive and controlling thoughts about the imperfection and how to hide it. The rise of social media platforms has only increased this issue.
When scrolling through different social media platforms, like instagram, teenagers are consistently exposed to “highly-curated” and edited images of peers and celebrities. Due to this constant exposure of altered images, it can easily lead to unhealthy expectations in the lifestyles of teenagers.
In a University of Birmingham study, forty-nine girls from ages thirteen to fifteen were interviewed about their use of social media related to health, specifically focusing on body image. Throughout each interview, words such as “intimidating,” “discouraged” and “insecure” were consistently used. After observing an unrealistic image, many of the teenage girls described feeling “ten times worse” or almost like the picture was “fat shaming” them.
These negative feelings can then lead to the unnatural editing of photographs which simultaneously leads to the creation of a fake identity. With the creation of a fake identity, it pressures individuals to present themselves unrealistically online which contradicts their true appearance and personality. With such stark differences between their online and real world identities, individuals can slowly lose their true sense of self which limits the positive uses of social media.
Before social media platforms skyrocketed, individuals had the ability to post “silly” and “embarrassing” images without a care in the world. Now posting has become a stressful process of worrying about filters, quality, hashtags and captions. In addition, the light-hearted nature of posting has transformed into the seeking of approval from strangers. How do we get back to the initial use of social media when posting was considered innocent and playful?
Looking at Social Media Through a Holistic Lens
Social media has transformed into an ever-changing medium. Every day it seems to shock individuals with its new heights. As the technology advances, with updates and unique system changes, the capabilities of digital users expand. This leads to greater convenience in a variety of everyday activities from shopping, ordering food, twenty-four-seven communication and staying up to date with vast amounts of information. It also creates an artificial environment where teenagers have greater freedom from the restrictions of everyday life to explore and develop without constraint.
However, social media is not as picture perfect as it seems. With the use of social media, teenagers instantly become vulnerable. Once a picture or video is uploaded, it is never unseen. In other words, it can be saved and reposted by thousands of individuals in just five minutes. Say goodbye to privacy!
There are mixed feelings about the existence of social media looming over the lives of individuals. However, there are differing reviews about everything in our word today. For example, is breakfast really the most important meal of the day? Therefore, you are the only one who can decide if social media has positively or negatively influenced your life. Do not let others make that decision for you.
