A Detailed Analysis: Social Media's Impact on Identity & Self-Image

This essay examines the multifaceted impact of social media on individuals' identity and self-image. It explores how platforms influence self-esteem, leading to issues like anxiety and depression due to social comparison and the pressure to maintain a curated online persona. The paper highlights how individuals often present a 'fake' version of themselves to gain acceptance, impacting their self-perception and potentially leading to emotional distress. The essay discusses how social media facilitates comparison with a vast audience, unlike traditional settings, affecting body image, self-worth, and overall mental health. It emphasizes the role of platforms like Facebook and Instagram in shaping identity, especially among teenagers, and the negative effects of constantly viewing idealized content. The essay also acknowledges the potential for positive impacts, such as facilitating communication and providing support networks, while concluding that social media's influence on identity and self-image is complex, with both positive and negative consequences.

Running head: Social media
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“Impact of social media on the identity and self-image"
Social media is considered as an interactive computer technology that focuses on sharing the
information, ideas, career interest with the help of virtual communities and networks.
Through social media it can be for the people to create and share the content on the social
networking platform. So, in this paper the discussion will be made on the topic “impact of
social media on identity and self-image”.
In the present scenario, it can be analyzed that social media is one of the popular mediums
through which people share their views and ideas and it is also the platform through which it
is convenient for the individuals to communicate with each other. It can be seen that social
media is the medium which impact the life of the individuals. Social media impacts the self
esteem as it has a link with loneliness, anxiety, depression and also decreased social skills.
The people are conscious about their self-image at the time of posting the pictures or the
posts on the social media sites. Sometimes they showcase their identity as a fake individual in
front of the public (Michikyan, Dennis and Subrahmanyam, 2015).
For instance: In many cases they are not happy but in front of others they showcase
themselves as one of the lucky and happy individual and this is just because they want to
maintain their image on the social media. Also, the self-identity of the people is affected by
the change in the entire style related to clothes, music and also it is related with the friend
circle. It has been analyzed that social media is a platform that also provide the interpretation
of what is beautiful, attractive and good. The youngsters are more influence with these
factors and they try to present themselves in a different manner. On the social media site,
individuals try to create a false presentation in front of others and it is only done to be liked
more by their peers (Fardouly et al., 2015).
It can be stated that impact on the self-image is just because of the social comparison. Earlier,
comparison was done between the limited that stays nearby or with the relatives. But now
with the social media people can compare themselves with the large number of audience and
this comparison is not limited. So, due to this the impact can be seen on the overall self-
image of the individual. In this case, people start comparing themselves with other in terms of
style, attractive pictures and clothes. Through social media, the people create mindset for
other and the pictures which are posted by the people showcase their identity and also create
their self-image in front of others. Now days to become famous or to showcase their identity
people can also take the steps which can be considered as unsafe. It has been analyzed that
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every individual will be engaged in doing something interesting but there are many
individuals who feel depressed and compare themselves with others. This can also lead to
depression and anxiety (Grogan, 2016).
By looking at the new feeds or on the social media pages, the individuals don’t think that they
are not seeing the overall lifestyle of an individual. The impact can be seen on the self-image
and also the people try to change their personality by seeing other people. So, it can lead to
the emotional issues. It can be seen through social media or by the influence of the other
pictures people try to showcase themselves which they are not in their real life. So, this can
impact the overall identity of the individual (Kim, 2018).
Social media like Facebook and Instagram is one of the famous platforms which are used by
the people of all age groups. So, these platforms are the major source which impacts the self-
image and identity of the individuals. It has been analyzed that the users of Facebook are
becoming depressed as they compare their profile pictures with others which create a feeling
of inferiority (Tiggemann, 2015). So, in this scenario, people expose themselves so that
people get attracted to them s this impact the identity of the individual. The identity of the
can be impacted as individual have different attitude of exposing themselves in front of others
but with the feeling of comparison, they started exposing themselves in public. These types of
things happen more with girls or women and this can impact their best form of themselves.
For example: the celebrities also share their pictures and content on the social media sites
which attract many followers towards it. kardashians are notorious of sharing their images on
Facebook and Instagram which attracts many million likers. But it is not only the image of
the celebrities which impact the people in the society but when people see the attractive
pictures on the social sites, they try to pretend themselves in a different way. They compare
their appearance with those pictures and think that they are less attractive. So, it sometimes
demotivates the people. When they are demotivated then their identity also changes in front
of the individuals who are living in the society (Bettman and Escalas, 2015).
Identity of the individual is the one from which they are recognized. Social media is one of
the aspects which impact the identity of the individual. As, now days people are more
focused towards the social media and they spend many hours in scrolling their newsfeed. So,
when they see the post of the other people, they get influence and some people can take it in a
positive manner and try to change it accordingly. But sometimes the feeling of insecurity and
comparison arises which can lead to depression. When individual is not satisfied with their
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looks then they will start sharing the post which can showcase their different identity or they
start behaving in a different manner with the other people. This can also change the overall
identity of the individual in the society (Yang, Holden and Carter, 2017).
But it can be seen that through social media platform it can be easy for the individual to share
their views and opinions. People can also interact or communicate with each other. So, with
the help of social media sites the information can be transferred easily and also people can
gather the information which they like. So, it helps in personal development which can also
be related to the overall image of the individual in the society. When the individual
communicate properly it reflects their overall identity in the society. Sometimes social media
sites help the teenagers to search for the support online which is necessary for development.
Through social media sites it can be simple for the people to take advice and also to gather
information which can help in personality development. So, social media sites can also
positively impact the overall identity of the individual in the society (Zheng et al., 2016).
The impact of social media on identity and self-image, it affects the identity in many ways,
firstly the identity that social media reflects is what a person wants to show. Social media
never reflects the true identity of a person, it just reflects what that person wants it to reflect
and so that is all kind of a virtual image. With the help of social media platform it can be easy
for the people to develop their skills and also offers a chance to gain accurate knowledge of
the activities which are taking place in the environment (Hawi and Samaha, 2017).
Social media impacts the identity and self-image in a way where people try to get into the
identity like other people. There is trend of following in social media world, and people
follow those to home they are attracted. Observing their profile, they want their profile to
look attractive and so they start kind of decorating their profile by editing their photos, adding
fillers, updating their status (Murray, 2015). Also, now days identity on social media is all
about the competition of likes followers and views on your profile, pages and posts, the more
likes and followers one has more his identity will be enhanced. Some people define
themselves in their profile what they are not and they do it just make their profile attractive so
that other people watch their profile and they can get more and more followers (Marino et al.,
2016).
Social media has made it easy to access any one’s identity, this means one can examine the
identity of any person sitting anywhere in the world so easily. If you want to know about a
person and his nature and hobbies, social media is the best platform as it can provide you the
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necessary details about the person. And it is also very easy to search any person on social
media, as now days there would be rarely a person left who does not have his or her account
on social media sites, and more over they are well active on these sites and keep on updating
their profile (Jenkins, 2014).
Now there are different kind of people with different mentalities and different likings and
disliking, so if one person likes your identity, other can dislike as well. No two people can
have same criteria of judging the identity. Also, it depends on the way one creates his or her
profile, because their profile only is their identity, and if the profile is created for example in
a trending or fashionable way, then it may attract some people while others can create a bad
image of that person if they do not like the profile. There are various ideologies of the people
which impact the overall mindset and showcase the personality of the individual in the
society (Hall-Phillips et al., 2016).
Also, through social media sites people get to learn about the latest trend in the market which
positively helps to boost their overall image in the society. Through social media like
Instagram people can gain knowledge related with the trend in the society and it will help to
maintain the overall image in the society. Teenagers can also look for the answers related to
their career objectives as it will help them to develop their skills and personality which can
lead to the positive impact on the overall personality of the individual. In the present world
where everything is all about competition, it is very important for everyone to have good
connection (Vogel and Rose, 2016). The more connections one has the more he or she can
grow in the competitive world. So, how to create connections. Social media is the best way to
connect to people all around the world and this can help in different ways. This can be done
creating a profile and exploring your identity on social media and also continuing the
presence so as to shape the image of a person (Andreassen, Pallesen and Griffiths, 2017).
Therefore, by analyzing the paper it can be concluded that social media sites are considered
as one of the popular sources which is considered by the people in the present scenario. It
impacts the identity and also the self-image of the individual living in the society. So, it can
be stated that it positively as well as negatively impact the overall identity and self-image of
the person living in the society. Social media is a platform that offer a chance to the people o
share and opinion and view and also it is a platform through which proper communication
process can take place. So, it boosts the overall confidence level of the people which can help
in personal development and also improvement can be seen on the identity or the personality
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of the individual. The negative impact can lead to dissatisfaction, anxiety and depression. It
can sometime create a feeling of dissatisfaction among the people by seeing the post of the
other people posted on the social sites. So, it is necessary for the individual to focus on
minimizing it by creating their unique identity and social image on the social media platform.
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