Social Media's Impact on Self Perception & Identity Formation: A Theoretical Reflection Through Digital Lens
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31305/rrijm.2025.v10.n10.018Keywords:
Social media, self-perception, identity formation, impression management, social comparison, digital identity, self-presentation in an online environmentAbstract
With increase in the collective use of social media and changes in the individual interaction, it has altered the way people think about themselves and how they present themselves to others. In this conceptual paper, the multidimensional relationship between social media use and the cognitive processes involved in self-perception and identity formation has been discussed in the light of several therapeutic explanations and researcher’s reflection. This paper examined this relationship using some of the most well-known theories such as Goffman's Impression Management Theory, Cooley's Looking-Glass Self Theory, Festinger's Social Comparison Theory, and Erikson's Stages of Identity Development, among others. The goal of this paper is to scrutinize the ways in which social media shape’s individual identity and provide an overview of how social media facilitates self-presentation, allows for constant social comparison, enables identity formation, and might have positive and negative effects on individuals psychologically. Additionally, it has explored the paradoxes associated with online authenticity, the fragmentation of digital identity, and the mediative role of upward social comparison in shaping self-esteem and body image. In conclusion, it can be stated that social media provides new and exciting opportunities for self-expression and identity exploration; at the same time, it presents new and unexplored challenges for individuals such as the ideal and real self-discrepancy, the fear of missing out (FOMO), and the online disinhibition effect.
References
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Prentice Hall.
Bessière, K., Seay, A. F., & Kiesler, S. (2007). The ideal elf: Identity exploration in World of Warcraft. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(4), 530–535. https://doi.org/10.1089/cpb.2007.9994
Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210–230. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00393.x
Buffardi, L. E., & Campbell, W. K. (2008). Narcissism and social networking web sites. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34(10), 1303–1314. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167208320061
Cooley, C. H. (1902). Human nature and the social order. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Davis, K. (2013). Young people’s digital lives: The impact of interpersonal relationships and digital media use on adolescents’ sense of identity. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(6), 2281–2293. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.05.022
Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C., & Lampe, C. (2007). The benefits of Facebook “friends:” Social capital and college students’ use of online social network sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1143–1168. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00367.x
Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. W. W. Norton & Company.
Festinger, L. (1954). A theory of social comparison processes. Human Relations, 7(2), 117–140. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872675400700202
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books.
Granic, I., Lobel, A., & Engels, R. C. M. E. (2014). The benefits of playing video games. American Psychologist, 69(1), 66–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034857
Haferkamp, N., Eimler, S. C., Papadakis, A. M., & Kruck, J. V. (2012). Men are from Mars, women are from Venus? Examining gender differences in self-presentation on social networking sites. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 15(2), 91–98. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2011.0151
Haimson, O. L., Liu, T., Zhang, B. Z., & Corvite, S. (2021). The online authenticity paradox: What being “authentic” on social media means, and barriers to achieving it. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 5(CSCW2), Article 454. https://doi.org/10.1145/3479567
Higgins, E. T. (1987). Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect. Psychological Review, 94(3), 319–340. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.94.3.319
Hillier, L., & Harrison, L. (2007). Building realities less limited than their own: Young people practising same-sex attraction on the internet. Sexualities, 10(1), 82–100. https://doi.org/10.1177/1363460707072956
Holland, G., & Tiggemann, M. (2016). A systematic review of the impact of the use of social networking sites on body image and disordered eating outcomes. Body Image, 17, 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2016.02.008
Kim, K. H., & Papacharissi, Z. (2003). Cross-cultural differences in online self-presentation: A content analysis of personal Korean and US home pages. Asian Journal of Communication, 13(1), 100–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/01292980309364833
Manago, A. M., Graham, M. B., Greenfield, P. M., & Salimkhan, G. (2008). Self-presentation and gender on MySpace. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 29(6), 446–458. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2008.07.001
Marcia, J. E. (1966). Development and validation of ego-identity status. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 3(5), 551–558. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0023281
Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2011). I tweet honestly, I tweet passionately: Twitter users, context collapse, and the imagined audience. New Media & Society, 13(1), 114–133. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444810365313
Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society. University of Chicago Press.
Pariser, E. (2011). The filter bubble: What the internet is hiding from you. Penguin Press.
Pedalino, F., & Pazzaglia, F. (2022). Instagram use and body dissatisfaction: The mediating role of upward social comparison with influencers. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(3), 1543. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19031543
Przybylski, A. K., Murayama, K., DeHaan, C. R., & Gladwell, V. (2013). Motivational, emotional, and behavioral correlates of fear of missing out. Computers in Human Behavior, 29(4), 1841–1848. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.02.014
Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7(3), 321–326. https://doi.org/10.1089/1094931041291295
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of intergroup relations (pp. 33–47). Brooks/Cole.
Tiggemann, M., & Zaccardo, M. (2015). “Exercise to be fit, not skinny”: The effect of fitspiration imagery on women’s body image. Body Image, 15, 61–67. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2015.06.003
Tukachinsky, R., & Stever, G. (2019). Theorizing development of parasocial engagement. Communication Theory, 29(3), 309–331. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qty032
Turkle, S. (1995). Life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet. Simon & Schuster.
Twenge, J. M., Joiner, T. E., Rogers, M. L., & Martin, G. N. (2018). Increases in depressive symptoms, suicide-related outcomes, and suicide rates among U.S. adolescents after 2010 and links to increased new media screen time. Clinical Psychological Science, 6(1), 3–17. https://doi.org/10.1177/2167702617723376
Uhls, Y. T., Ellison, N. B., & Subrahmanyam, K. (2017). Benefits and costs of social media in adolescence. Pediatrics, 140(Suppl 2), S67–S70. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-1758E
Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2008). Adolescents’ identity experiments on the internet: Consequences for social competence and self-concept unity. Communication Research, 35(2), 208–231. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650207313164
Valkenburg, P. M., & Peter, J. (2013). The differential susceptibility to media effects model. Journal of Communication, 63(2), 221–243. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcom.12024
Vogel, E. A., Rose, J. P., Roberts, L. R., & Eckles, K. (2014). Social comparison, social media, and self-esteem. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 3(4), 206–222. https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000047
Walther, J. B. (1996). Computer-mediated communication: Impersonal, interpersonal, and hyperpersonal interaction. Communication Research, 23(1), 3–43. https://doi.org/10.1177/009365096023001001
Winnicott, D. W. (1960). Ego distortion in terms of true and false self. In The maturational processes and the facilitating environment (pp. 140–152). International Universities Press.
Zhao, S., Grasmuck, S., & Martin, J. (2008). Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships. Computers in Human Behavior, 24(5), 1816–1836. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2008.02.012
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0).
