Key words:Identity, Social Media, Self Presentation, Impression Management, Self-Disclosure, Self comparison

Abstract:

Teenagers have constant access to social media through technological devices and so, communication and connectivity is now done a lot through social networking sites. But whilst the younger generation is growing up digitally, it has had an impact on the identity development of young female adults. Hence, as their is pressure for identity validation from friends (Shapiro & Margolin, 2013). Self presentation and impression management has meant that teenage girls want to maintain a desired image. They are projecting an online identity that appeals to the desired image made by peers and online users. The pressure to employ self presentation comes from the likelihood of criticism and lack of acceptance from peers if failed to do so (Schouten, 2007). The curated profiles that teenage girls are viewing on social media present unrealistic online identities and the pressure to appeal to the ‘perfect’ online identity, poses issues on this demographic. During a females teenage years they feel pressure from society to fit into standards such as the sexualised nature presented through media. These ‘perfect’ profiles are negatively impacting teenage girls, as they are comparing their body and beauty to unrealistic and even altered online profiles (Mineva, Petkova, & Strebkova, 2018). Thus, teenage girls are pressured to appeal to identities that are viewed online, but these are curated, altered and often, set unrealistic standards for young females. What they are expected to identify their self identity with, is often unrealistic standards and henceforth, consequences include identity issues such as low self esteem and social comparison. 

Introduction:

Social media usage among teenagers and more particularly teenage girls is high. Social networking sites are a key communication tool for young female adults as they are constantly accessible to obtaining information about others through social media platforms (Shapiro & Margolin, 2013). Whilst growing up online, teenage girls have become expected by their peers and social media users to identify with online identities. They are pressured by their peers to do so and consequently they gain validation. Teenage girls have the opportunity to curate their online profile allowing them to fit into the expectations that online users and peers have deemed socially acceptable. But what is identity? It’s what makes you the person that you are, a set of facts, the facts that people think of you make your identity. It is how you are viewed by people. Thus, teenage girls are able to alter their online identity as a form of impression management (Oyserman, Elmore , & Smith). Both self presentation and impression management will be discussed in relation to teenage girls curating their online identity to appeal to social standards. Furthermore, an important negative to be discussed is the issue of self esteem and self comparison on social media (Mineva, Petkova, & Strebkova, 2018). So, this essay will discuss the impact social media has had on teenage girls identity in relation to, self presentation, impression management, self esteem and social comparison. 

Self presentation and impression management:

A major impact on teenage girls identity development caused by social media is impression management and self presentation. Self presentation “is generally considered to be motivated by a desire to make a favourable impression on others, or an impression that corresponds to one’s ideals. As such, self-presentation is centrally involved in impression management and the projection of an online identity” according to Herring and Kapidzic’s (2015) article. Young adults develop their identity during high school when they are pressured to fit in and gain acceptance from peers. But with social media they are able to put forth an identity online and such identities can be easily curated to fit the standards of peers. Hence, although young adults feel pressure to fit in at school nowadays, they feel that they need to do the same with their online identity. The ability to curate your online identity gives young females the opportunity to gain acceptance from peers and society (Shapiro & Margolin, 2013). It is normal among teenagers to compare the self presentation of themselves to their peers in order to coordinate what is made socially acceptable by their peers such as “opinions, attitudes and values” (Schouten, 2007).

The construction of an online identity is executed by posting pictures and information. Teenage girls are suggested to be more incline to pressure from peers and society. In saying that, a constant pressure for girls is to conform to a certain identity which is to look “perfect” in what they post online and the expectation to identify with this “perfect” profile as their identity online. They feel pressure from peer and online culture to present an identity online that appeals to the sexualised culture and maintain their impression management to fit this expectation. Since social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have functions such as likes and follows, it has become a form of way for teenagers to seek validation from peers. It also calculates popularity which means that teenagers are pressured to gain likes and follows, so they appeal to the “perfect” and ‘sexualised’ online identity. Boys are pressured to conform to the masculine tough profile and females are pressured to be sexy, in order to gain validation (Mascheroni, Vincent, & Jimenez, 2015). The selective profile that teenagers decide on publishing to the web, the response from peers can impact the “individuals self perceptions” (Shapiro & Margolin, 2013). 

Social media platforms allow online users to develop self presentation through profile creating, it started off on platforms such as MySpace and has now grown onto applications accessible on mobile devices for example Instagram. Profiles allow users to present themselves as any persona, as it is common for fake personas to be made online. Although platforms such as Facebook persist users to not place fake information, it has become common for individuals to defy this and instead create a curated online persona. Teenagers use social media as an opportunity to play around with their identity online, it is easy to curate their profile to how they want themselves to be seen by others (Herring & Kapidzic, 2015). 

Self presentation is also connected to self-disclosure which is the revealing of personal information and what both have in common is their role in the identity development of teenagers. A reason for this is that when individuals reveal information about themselves online, others are able to have their self concept be influenced by the identities that they view online (Schouten, 2007). Schouten’s (2007) article explains different perspectives on how self presentation and self-disclosure influence the identity development of teenagers. When disclosing about themselves online and publishing information about their identity on social media, they are able to form relationships both friendly and romantic. This is because self disclosure is accepted online by peers and boys in particular benefit from this in regards to forming romantic relationships. Boys tend to find it more difficult than girls to self disclose in person and so, the lack of talking online proves helpful for teenage boys. Self disclosure has been found to be more common online than in person and teenagers are able to self disclose more comfortably and better online. This is due to the control that teens have online and the lack of face to face communication.  Publishing information about their identity online has henceforth, helped teenagers form relationships as it is easier to reveal information about their identity online more than in person. Social networking sites often demand self disclosure from users and the decisions on how a teenager identifies themselves and the responses from those decisions impact individual identity (Shapiro & Margolin, 2013). 

With social media, teenagers are able to connect with online communities and other individuals with common interests. If a teenage girl’s identity relates to say an ethnic race, they can connect with other people online with this identity trait. They can do this with groups and develop a group identity. Thus, teenagers  have the opportunity to communicate with people from different locations and backgrounds. With these connections, teenagers feel a sense of belonging to a community and with the ability to expand their knowledge, their identity can be enhanced (Shapiro & Margolin, 2013). 

Self esteem and Social Comparison:

In relation to young female girls curating their online identity, it has affected their self esteem. Self esteem is an identity issue, so when one has self esteem issues, self identity problems arise. Self esteem henceforth affects the identity development of young female adults and social media plays a role in this issue.  Petkova’s et al. (2018) article describes self esteem as ones own critique of themselves being negative or positive and which affects their thoughts on their own value. Petkova et al. (2018) discusses that teenage girls have more negative self esteem in comparison to teenage boys (Mineva, Petkova, & Strebkova, 2018). 

Many scholars (Buunk & Gibbons, 2007; Steil & Hay, 1997; Wheeler, 2000) have suggested that certain types of individuals may be more inclined to compare than others, hypothesising that the tendency to engage in social comparisons may be a personality characteristic” (Bergagna & Tartaglia, 2018). As teenage girls compare themselves to others excessively, they become prone to identity issues as self comparing leads to a sense of low self -esteem and uncertainty about themselves. They then lose confidence after comparing themselves to the online personas they view online. Teenage girls are known to self compare more than their male peers due to pressure from peers to identify with online identities such as a sexualised profiles and beauty/body expectations (Mascheroni, Vincent, & Jimenez, 2015). When teenage girls view online profiles with superior qualities such as lifestyle, looks and body it provokes the viewer to want to improve themselves. Thus the “continual flow of information” allows social comparison to occur more often than and tendencies to change one’s characteristics in their identity occur more often (Bergagna & Tartaglia, 2018). When viewing online profiles, we are viewing constructed identities as people are able to have control on what their profiles and pages look like. Furthermore, Vries et al. (2017) explains the trend among social media for users to only post the positive side of their lives and the persisting trend to present positive posts. But these positive posts are having a negative effect on viewers as the social comparison is provoking negative views on ones identity. 

The social media platform ‘Instagram’ is popular among teenage girls with a survey result saying that 58% of teenagers ages 15 to 19 in the Netherlands use Instagram  (Vries, Möller, Wieringa, Eigenraam, & Hamelink, 2017). The reason Instagram is to be discussed as a main role in social comparison issues among teenage girls is because it is an image based social media platform unlike Facebook and Twitter. Not only that but Instagram is run through likes, comments and followers, which also has consequences on the confidence of young females. With Instagram’s main use being posting photos it has indeed provoked concerns among young females such as body image concerns and beauty ideals, as Instagram usage provides them with the ability to compare themselves to what they view on the platform. Another reason Instagram causes self esteem and comparison issues is because it is the platform that people are most commonly known to follow celebrities and influencers (Fardouly, Willburger, & Vartanian, 2017).

Body Image:

Instagram photos are known to be manipulated by its owner, by doing so the viewer is seeing a retouched image which not only fits into the ‘perfection’ profile that Instagram users are curating to but it can cause body image issues among young teenage girls (Kleemans, Daalmans, Carbaat, & Anschütz, 2016). Celebrities and Influencers have become role models for young girls, but as a consequence their retouched photos are creating unrealistic body ideals. 

Whilst Instagram famous users are playing a role in this issue, Kleeman’s article et al. (2016) presents research that teenagers are more commonly known to self compare with peers and non-famous Instagram users. This is because they relate more to ordinary users so they tend to compare themselves more to these profiles. These comparisons include both lifestyle and body/beauty standards. Media images are known to cause body image issues among teenagers, but studies suggest that the comparison between peers could have the same impact. Hence as comparing to your peers profile on social media is more realistic to your own more than a celebrities profile. Young teenage girls on social media particularly Instagram alter their images to appeal to the beauty standards they are constantly exposed to  (Kleemans, Daalmans, Carbaat, & Anschütz, 2016). So, the effect of viewing these body and beauty standards has provoked teenage girls to manipulate their online identity as the photos they are publishing onto the web are not their authentic identity. Teenage girls are more vulnerable to what they see online in regards to beauty and body standards and so their identity development is influenced by what they are exposed to online. At that age, they are still in psychosocial development and so viewing peers profiles and self comparing will easily influence a young teenage girls thoughts on their own identity. Therefore, with research from Kleeman’s (2016) study on body image and Instagram, it is clear that teenage girls who view altered beauty/body standards of peers on Instagram have low self esteem more so than the exposure to non-altered images. This came at a higher rate for girls who made more social comparisons. It is particularly worrisome when analysing research from this article as majority of girls who were surveyed were not aware that the image they viewed on social media was altered and so, instead they believed it reality (Kleemans, Daalmans, Carbaat, & Anschütz, 2016). So, it is clear that viewing online identities of peers affects a teenage girls own opinion on both her offline and online identity. 

Conclusion:

In conclusion, teenage girls are pressured by peers and online users to present their online identity in such a way that it appeals to the ‘perfect’ Instagram profile. High school is a time for teenagers to want to be accepted by peers, and with social media they can to curate their online identity to feel accepted. Teenage girls are comparing their self presentation to their peers and also, celebrities and influencers. When comparing their self presentation they are learning what is socially acceptable and they coordinate their online identity to fit into these expectations. Consequently, they use impression management to appeal to these expectations. When viewing idealistic identities on social media including their peers, teenage girls tend to compare themselves and this critique can damage their self esteem. This is poses negative effects on teenage girls as what they are viewing are altered and curated identities, so they are comparing themselves to unrealistic portrayals of body, beauty and lifestyle ideals. Therefore, teenage girls identity is affected by social media as they curate their online profiles to seek validation from peers and online users.

References:

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Kleemans, M., Daalmans, S., Carbaat, I., & Anschütz, D. (2016). Picture Perfect: The Direct Effect of Manipulated Instagram Photos on Body Image in Adolescent Girls. Media Psychology, 21(1), 93-110. doi:10.1080/15213269.2016.1257392

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Minev, M., Petrova, B., Mineva, K., Petkova, M., & Strebkova, R. (2018). Self-esteem in adolescents. Trakia Journal of Science, 16(2), 114-118. doi:10.15547/tjs.2018.02.007

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Shapiro, L. A., & Margolin, G. (2013). Growing Up Wired: Social Networking Sites and Adolescent Psychosocial Development. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 17(1), 1-18. doi:10.1007/s10567-013-0135-1

Schouten, A. (2007). Adolescents’ online self-disclosure and self-presentation. The Amsterdam School of Communications Research, 9-16. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.121.6295&rep=rep1&type=pdf. 

Vries, D. A., Möller, A. M., Wieringa, M. S., Eigenraam, A. W., & Hamelink, K. (2017). Social Comparison as the Thief of Joy: Emotional Consequences of Viewing Strangers’ Instagram Posts. Media Psychology, 21(2), 222-245. doi:10.1080/15213269.2016.1267647