February 18, 2021
Social media casts a public spotlight on aspects of our lives that in past generations were kept mostly private and/or shared only with those in close proximity. Now, aspects of our lives can be widely broadcasted across geographic borders with or without our control, such as when a person is tagged in a photo without their permission or awareness. This dynamic has important implications to how a person develops their self-concept, especially for youth growing up with social media.
Self-Reflected Appraisals
According to the theory of self-reflected appraisals, we have a tendency to evaluate ourselves based on how we perceive others to evaluate us (Sullivan, 1953). We see ourselves, in part, through eyes of other people. This principle can have positive effects in such cases where someone you look up to, like a teacher or a mentor, “believes” in you, which can instill a sense of confidence in your potential to succeed. Several studies have demonstrated this point with regard to findings that teacher expectations have an influence on students’ academic success over and beyond a student’s intellectual ability ( e.g., Rosenthal & Jacobsen, 1968).
Given that self-reflected appraisals are basically a perception of a perception, this process is prone to error even in cases where we see ourselves through the eyes of people we know well. This error may be exponentially amplified on social media as we don’t really know and/or can’t keep track of the sheer quantity of people who may be viewing and/or evaluating your posts. When opinions and judgments are projected, it is often more a reflection of the other person doing the evaluating, yet we may erroneously internalize and personalize these evaluations as if they reflect who we are.
Conditioning a False Self
The deleterious effect of this dynamic is highlighted in the Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma, during a scene where a teenage girl posts a photo of herself on social media. Immediately, she receives compliments on her appearance that make her feel good about herself, but her mood drops immediately after a few insensitive comments that joke about photoshopping her ears. In this mock scenario, I can surmise the friend who posted the joke didn’t mean harm, but regardless of the benign intent, it can have a scarring impact on the self-esteem and body image of person on the receiving end.
I would argue that the positive comments are equally deleterious as negative ones, and perhaps more insidious due to the masked appearance of benevolence. Positive comments like the ones from the Social Dilemma scene, “OMG so beautiful” or “you’re so awesome,” can contribute to an idealized view of self that may translate to unrealistically high expectations which then creates pressure to uphold this particular image. Furthermore, if one attaches their self-esteem to these positive comments, we can become dependent on needing constant external validation from others.
A problem with external validation is that they are often fickle. This dynamic is prevalent in celebrity culture when rising stars, like a Britney Spears or a Lebron James, are put on a lofty pedestal, but the first moment they make a mistake, they are vilified as if they committed the most heinous crime, such as the treatment Lebron James got for the Decision, which basically was a harmless PR snafu. While these individuals possess extraordinary talent, they are still human and it is human to make mistakes. On social media, regular folk can become mini-celebrities with their own following, which may come with the baggage of being judged based on perfectionistic or idealized standards that even the people evaluating may not hold themselves to.
To put these dynamics on overdrive, built-in rating systems appear to be a standard feature in most social media sites, such as tracking the number of view or retweets, or like/thumbs up, or up/down-vote buttons, which are seemingly benign forms of mini-judgments. The danger lies in the repeated frequency of these mini-judgments that over-simplify things in a binary way. Given the nature of self-reflected appraisals, the constant act of judging and being judged may condition a false self: curating an online persona based on how others may judge it. To this end, we may selectively highlight the positives, such as special milestones or happy moments, and hide parts of ourselves that may be judged negatively, projecting an incomplete representation of who we really are.
This positivity bias also makes it difficult to discern whether an online representation is truly genuine, or rather a performance of impression management. For those who know how to work the system, the latter can be monetized on a disproportionate scale in such cases of influencers or “clout chasers” making millions of dollars based on their ability to portray an image or viewpoint that hits on a particular hot trend that goes viral. This is not to say people’s portrayals of themselves on social media are false, but that the portrayals are uncertain and incomplete. Given that we don’t often have direct, in-person access to people we follow on social media, it is unclear whether the words and images posted on social media are congruent with their actual attitudes and behaviors in real life.
Compare and Despair
Another unintended consequence of social media is people’s tendency to use the platform to compare themselves to others. When comparisons are done skillfully, they can provide a general benchmark of where you stack up relative to others, which can be a measure of progress and even a source of motivation.
On the flip side, comparisons can be a trap of envy and reinforce a deficit mindset. Given the positivity bias in what people typically post on social media, this may feed a fear of missing out and a false impression that you are falling short of some illusory standard. The “grass is greener” aspect of envy may mislead us to over-idealize other people’s lives as better than ours and keep us from appreciating what we have, resulting in a deficit mindset. For example, when I sometimes read up on the wonderful accomplishments of my colleagues, I am both happy for them but also a bit envious and insecure, which can spiral into self-criticalness, “What am I doing with my life?, Am I not doing enough?” Yet, from the outside looking in, it is more likely others see that I am doing well enough.
Furthermore, comparisons can be misleading. The positive images portrayed on social media may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. This point is highlighted in the ancient parable, The Sword of Damocles, which tells of a courtier in the court of King Dionysius who showered the King with praise and flattery. To teach Damocles what its really like to be King, Dionysius allows Damocles to take his place for one day. Damocles naively accepts the offer and begins to indulge in the “good life.” Moments later, Dionysus arranges for a sword to be hung over the throne by a single strand of hair from a horse tail, pointing down where a now frightened Damocles is sitting. Dionysus explains that the sword represents the relentless fear and anxiety he experiences in the face of constant threat from enemies conspiring to end his reign. While the highs may not be as high, a simple life may offer a peace of mind that even elude Kings.
Disembodiment
We often consume social media in a disembodied state, such as sitting in a sedentary posture and eyes focused on a flat screen that only provides a simulation of the real world. In this state, we may not be paying attention to what’s happening in our bodies, such as hunger cues or our body’s need for movement, fresh air, and natural sunlight.
Communications are often limited to fingers typing on a keyboard, which disengages our body’s intricate system of vocalizing speech as well as neglecting the importance of non-verbals that convey emotions, such as facial expressions, body posture, and hand gestures. Despite emojis, text-based communication lacks the intonation, pitch, volume and pacing that our human voice can produce to modulate meaning and expression.
Moreover, when we engage in social media for countless hours in a disembodied state, we lose touch with our body’s natural defense system. Over millennia, the human body has evolved a nervous system that is wired for sympathetic arousal, popularly known as the fight or flight response, whenever the body detects a threat for the sole purpose of self-preservation. The reaction time for this fight or flight response is generally faster than our minds’ ability to consciously recognize a threat, such as when we instinctively pull our hands away from a hot plate.
When we ignore these bodily signals we may fall prey to the ill-advised assumption that the words or images on the screen can’t really harm us, leaving us defenseless to internalizing negative and/or misleading messages that can complicate our relationship with ourselves and others.
Recommendations
Be mindful of the content you consume. Like a marionette, sometimes I feel an invisible string pulls my fingers to click on sites without my intention. Thus, it may be helpful to be mindful and intentional of what social media content and images you consume on a regular basis, and self-reflect on how the consumed content affects your self-esteem, relationship with your body, and your overall sense of self. If you find yourself having a strong reaction to a particular response or non-response on social media, it may be a sign that you are over-identified with your online persona. Additionally, be mindful of your state of mind at times you automatically gravitate towards social media use, such as feeling distressed, bored, or avoidant (e.g., procrastination). Practice the STOP exercise to disrupt automatic patterns. Lastly, given the overwhelming amount of content on social media that pushes us to consume a lot at a rapid rate, mindfully slow down your consumption, and spend some time processing the content before moving on (e.g., what do I think about this? how does this make me feel?).
Embody social media use. When we get sucked into the blackhole of social media, it may be helpful to periodically check-in with your bodily sensations, reactions, and needs and take breaks to engage in activities that anchor and ground you back into your body, like stretching, a brief workout, or the five senses grounding exercise. When consuming upsetting content, one way to attune to your body is placing your hand over your heart to not only attune to your heart rate, which is an indicator of sympathetic arousal, but also to engender a feeling of being held. The ancients developed yoga to condition the body for long periods of sitting meditation, our bodily needs in modern times are no different when we sit for countless hours in front of a screen.
Gratitude practice. To offset the effects of comparison envy and a deficit mindset, it may be helpful to incorporate a daily gratitude practice, a secular form of “count your blessings,” to remind yourself of the things you may be taking for granted. A commonly recommended gratitude practice is contemplating at least three things at the end of each day of things you are grateful for. Even if you have a bad day, you can look for the silver linings, such as enjoying the warmth of sunlight on your skin or feeling acknowledged when a stranger says hello to you. To provide additional perspective, you may contemplate, “how many people in this world would be grateful to have the day you just had?” For many, these kinds of practices may feel contrived or cheesy, which is understandable. Whenever we engage in a new pattern, it is going to feel unfamiliar and unnatural at first, but given that we are adaptive beings, we will eventually acclimate to it.
Placing focus outside of yourself. By design, social media sites curate content that is of interest and relevance primarily to you, such as sending notifications of images you are tagged in, filtering news stories based on your browsing history, and surrounding you with like-minded people in the form of Facebook friends or Tweeter followers. You are at the center of your social media universe, which can influence you to be more self-conscious and even ego-centric. Thus, it may be helpful to take a break from yourself and engage in activities that help you focus on things other than yourself. For example, usually after a couple of hours of hiking in nature, my ego lays to rest, pre-occupations with myself evaporate and I feel so connected with nature that I feel a part of something much bigger than myself. Focusing outside yourself can also take the form of taking care of another living being like a plant or a pet, volunteering, and contributing to social and environmental causes that are bigger than yourself.
Differentiation. One function of our body’s immune system is to differentiate native cells from foreign cells, like viruses, bacteria, and germs, to identify which invader cells to defend against. Similarly, given the nature of self-reflected appraisals, it is helpful to differentiate your real self from others’ projections of you on social media. A song from one of my favorite artists, Brandi Carlile’s “That Wasn’t Me,” captures this dynamic beautifully. A helpful tool for differentiation of self from projections are venn diagrams, such as “How I perceive myself” on one side, and “How others perceive me” on the other side, as well as your “real-self” on one side and your “online persona” on the other side. This exercise may be helpful if you notice yourself over-identifying with your online persona, blurring the lines between the “world of bits” and the “world of atoms.”
Watch the Social Dilemma documentary. There are very smart people working in Silicon Valley whose job is to keep you hooked on their site for the purpose of increasing profit (e.g., selling ads). If its unclear how a particular site is making profit, the product is most likely your identity and what they are selling is your data. To this end, these sites may employ complex algorithms that manipulate your brain’s dopamine reward system to keep you glued to their sites, not far off from what Casinos do. To raise awareness of these mechanisms, it may be helpful to watch the excellent Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma. It was eye opening to hear that the designers of these social media platforms would not let their own children spend too much time on social media.
Limit the use of social media. Start by monitoring and taking inventory of the sites you visit frequently, and examine what value they add to your life. Set time boundaries around your social media use, such as scheduling a time for when and how much you intend to use with a clear start and end time. Place a post-it near your computer screen or devices reminding you of these limits. Be aware of any situational factors that may trigger your use. If social media is a coping mechanism, diversify your options for coping by finding other activities to meet your needs. Enlist a trusted friend or family member to keep you accountable for your use. Finally, consider limiting app time by configuring the Screentime settings in IOS or using an app like Appblock on Android.
Mantra. A wise colleague once shared their strategy of repeating the mantra, “compare and despair,” whenever they felt the urge to negatively compare them-self to others. This mantra would be repeated until the urge passed. Mantras are a helpful way of loading substantive meaning into a few words that can be accessed immediately at any time. It may be helpful to develop your own mantra that reminds you of the pitfalls of judging and comparing yourself on social media or a mantra that recognizes that a source of human happiness is to be content with what you already have.
Conclusion
Social media has revolutionized human relationships. The benefits are numerous, allowing us to connect and share across geographic boundaries on a scale never before seen in human history. But for each benefit, there may be a dark side with unintended consequences. Over-connections can result not only in a loss of privacy, but leave us more vulnerable to judgments and comparisons that may unwittingly condition a false self when we over-identify with our online personas. To prevent the mask wearing the face, we must be alert and aware of the effects of social media and stay embodied in the real world that serves as the common ground for real connections beyond projected images.
References
Rosenthal, R, and L. Jacobsen (1968). Pygmalion in the classroom: teacher expectation and pupils’ intellectual development. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Sullivan, H. S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry. W W Norton & Co.
Posted February 18, 2021 by Y. Sue Park.