No, this article is not preaching about why it is necessary to take down photos of yourself at a party, or to delete that tweet you used a curse word in. It is not about what employers are going to see and push your application aside because of. The real matter at hand is digital identity, on a level further below what is seen by universities or by jobs. It is rather about modern media perception, and the simple fact that today’s teens are facilitating multiple identities, due to easy access to and obsession with social media.
Young people use their social media as much more than just a medium for sharing photos with friends and family. Many users spend countless hours planning, editing, and taking photos to post on their Instagram page, all for the sole purpose of subconsciously creating a separate identity for themselves and for the sake of self-satisfaction.
“Some people take Instagram as this artistic portrayal of themselves,” claims Fashion Institute of Technology freshman, Julia O’Donnell, “You can almost tell what kind of subgenre or sub-culture they identify with.”
Even aside from over-exposure and the elimination of privacy, social media has gained a prominent role in modern society, as many young people’s Instagram or Twitter pages have really just become a major part of their personal identities. It is almost as if their smartphones and their public feeds act as an extension of themselves- serving as crucial supplements of their overall selves in an oddly superficial fashion.
“It [Social media] is obviously not a true reflection of the person, because it is not showing everything about them- it is what they are choosing to post and what they want people to see,” said O’Donnell.
The amount of time and effort that goes into posting a photo on Instagram is quite alarming, as it is apparent that many teens have become obsessed with the way they are perceived by their peers. Social media makes this reinvention convenient, as many utilize it as a clean slate to craft their personal identity they way they please, only digitally.
This dangerous mindset is tricking young people into thinking that their digital identity overrides their real-life identity, as concentration is being shifted from real character traits and values to their appearance on a mere smartphone screen.
“Social media has caused us to shift away from expressing our self-identities and toward constructing facades based on the answers to these questions, ‘How will others look at me?’ and ‘How can I ensure that others view me positively?’,” according to Jim Taylor Ph.D. of PsychologyToday.com.
Ultimately, young people are idealizing their own lives, caught in a sea of self-disillusionment, as they are trying to craft themselves within their desired identity. It is important to attempt to let go of this unnatural, societally-established concept of digital identity, and to concentrate on the concrete simplicity of flesh-to-flesh perception, for the sake of mental health and personal self-worth of the youth.
