How does the Digital Self on Instagram affect our self-perception?
The new world of Instagram is here to stay!
Instagram invaded our lives and turned the balance once and for all. Through this digital platform, we try to connect with others, with whom we want to create bonds. Bonds that fill us emotionally.
We are looking for something deep and essential, presenting ourselves, nevertheless, selectively and filtered.
We want others to accept us and approve of what we do, so that we can then enter into a relationship with them. A relationship, however, which ultimately is not based on solid foundations. Because yes, the medium demands a perfection, but this supposed perfection creates wrong expectations from the other, who finally realizes that the digital self, which we present to him, differs to a degree from our real self, as we project only one aspect of it.
The need for approval and acceptance inevitably makes Instagram a medium that affects our psychological well-being.
When we receive, for example, positive feedback, we are happy and feel more confident. Something that makes us feel that we are doing something right, so we repeat it to be socially acceptable.
Social recognition is one of our needs, as a result, all our actions are carried out with this in mind.
On the other hand, if we receive negative feedback, our unpleasant feelings are amplified. Our already existing inadequacies are being intensified. Something that pushes us to change the way we present ourselves.
We strive to follow, even to the letter, the values and expectations of the reference groups we already belong to, as well as those we wish to belong to.
Consequently, we invest more in other people's evaluations of ourselves than in our own self-evaluations. An investment that makes us strategically present ourselves. A strategy which, however, over time, makes us mentally vulnerable to the judgments of digital others.
Constantly changing and adapting our digital selves to what others expect and want of us, makes us lose ourselves.
The boundaries of the real self and the digital self are not distinct, which confuses us. Confusion and fluidity, which prevents the true self from emerging.
External traits outweigh internal traits. The age of appearance opposes the age of being. Whatever you show and whatever you declare, by extension, you are, without anyone examining how authoritative and true what you claim about yourself is.
Our digital selves are flexible, changing according to circumstances, having unpredictable ramifications for us,
but also for society as a whole.
Arthrography: Alexia Styliani Kanakari
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