Social Media and Psychology Part 2

            In my last discussion post, I talked about the examination of the self through conventional methods, and argued that social media imposes complexities on this concept which redefine the act of observing one’s self and others. In hopes to iron out some ideas for my final project, I will continue along this same path, and now turn towards the implications the aforementioned impositions.

            As I mentioned in my previous post, most humans have a hard time understanding how other people perceive them. Perhaps this is because the self is so entangled in the way that we think, it is impossible to completely remove our own view of ourselves when thinking about how others view us. However, by delegating some of the burden of self-awareness to social media, we may actually be able to move closer towards some sort of objectivity. Once someone creates a Facebook, they no longer have to rely completely on their internal self-image in order to judge themselves. In a way, this person can now approach the self with a faux sense of objectivity. Social media can remediate our ideas of our selves into a medium which is detached from all the convolution of self-consciousness. However, as with any medium, social media distorts the information which it relays.

            In some ways, social media could be seen as nothing more than a game. Users strive to earn some sort of digital currency – likes, hearts, etc. – and enjoy the brief moments of contentment that they provide. The fact that the content is a direct representation of one’s ego could be just an afterthought. However, this fact has massive ramifications for all involved.

            If someone views social media as a popularity contest, it is highly unlikely that their Instagram page will be an accurate representation of themselves. At the very least, the user will only post content which depicts them in a positive light, no matter how relevant the content is to their objective reality. The end result is confusion and perhaps even deception, for those interacting with the user online and even for the user themselves.

            This brings me to the concept of Objective Self-Awareness. This psychological theory was first defined in 1972 by two psychologists, Duval and Wicklund. The basis of the theory is that when humans look inwards and begin evaluating themselves, they judge themselves based on standards that they have formed throughout their lives which “define what a ‘correct’ person is.”¹ If, upon reflection, someone decided that they were not living up to that standard, they would experience a host of negative consequences. At this point, Duval and Wicklund proposed the person would either work to close the discrepancy, or enter a state of avoidance.

            When using social media, it is almost impossible to not look inward. To attract the most likes, one would have to determine their ideal self, and compare themselves with that ideal every time they posted. Interestingly, this individual would actively try to bring their social media presence closer to their standard, but most people would not accomplish this by behaving more like their ideal self. Instead, it is much easier to simply stretch the truth on social media pages and ignore the discrepancies in real life.

However, one must face their denial every time they interact with social media, because during this time they must ensure that their interactions live up to their manufactured image. In this way, some of the negative emotions associated with using social media could be described using the OSA theorem.

¹Silva, Paul J., and T. Shelley Duval. "Objective Self-Awareness Theory: Recent Progress and Enduring Problems." Personality and Social Psychology Review 5.3 (2001): 230-41. Sagepub. Web. 15 Apr. 2017.