The looking glass self online

As kids get older and begin to explore their own identities, it’s normal for the opinions, language and behavior of friends to start to carry more weight as parental influence begins to take a back seat. Messages from television, music lyrics and advertising also seep into your self-concepts, sometimes unconsciously. The self-image that you develop is referred to as the Looking Glass self.

Virtual Selves, Real Identities:

But your generation of teens is different in a major way: You are the 1st generation that was born with the Internet, and nearly all of you are online today. You  have grown up in a world where what you see on video sharing sites, social networking pages and in virtual worlds is also shaping your self-concepts. Television is passive entertainment, but the interactive entertainment of the Internet allows hundreds of acquaintances and
thousands of strangers to give instant personalized approval, disapproval or advice about any content that is
publicly posted. A majority of you do create some form of online content today, but even if you aren’t posting online, or are keeping your stuff relatively private, you are still being bombarded with others’ ratings, rankings and judging of everything in cyberspace, from people to products.

How do these changes affect adolescent identity formation and self-concept?

When you are experimenting with new ways of looking, dressing, sounding and behaving online, the
feedback you get from others in your online networks can be supportive, empowering and an accurate representation of how others will respond to you in “real life.” One benefit to practicing online is that there is less emotional risk involved in experimenting with new aspects of a budding identity when one is behind a digital curtain. Online social experiences can function as useful training wheels for social skills. On the other hand, many more eyes may view your attempt and even pass this on to others, which can be exponentially more embarrassing. Knowing others are watching can also encourage people to embrace a personality trait more deeply and with lasting effects.

   In one recent study, students were told to write as if they were extroverted or introverted. One group posted their work online for others to see and the other group wrote privately. The online group used more definitive language and was more likely to hold onto the prescribed characteristics online after the experiment was over than was the group that wrote in private.

 When young people are trying identities on for size, those traits may stick more readily if they do it online – for better or worse.