Marco Papageorgiou

Flawless Obsession: social media and the pursuit of identity The ability to disseminate, instantly, collections of selfies - and videos - that document our moment to moment lives may well be a pursuit to search for our self-identity. What’s more intriguing is that digital media platforms, such as Instagram and Snapchat now function as an ongoing reality TV show [1]. This dramatization (of our lives) might cause more harm than good; creating stress, associated with how we might appear to others, leading to concerns about our perceived image. A selfie is good, but taking a selfie on a selfie-stick is better.  A flawless pursuit  Social media is – or already has – given rise to a generation of what I refer to as the ‘flawless obsession.’  I say flawless, since today’s arsenal of sophisticated cameras and camera software (in the selfie world), along with complimentary applications to provide instant gratification, almost always permit an anticipation and journey to an eventual flawless image driving - upwards - sensitivity to each individual image. 'This photo looks much better than that photo.' During this image-capturing process, time is often distorted. Although it may be observed that we cannot become addicted to our smart phones, we can, in fact, develop obsessive behaviour and behavioural addictions associated with social media.  Time is often distorted when we engage in other forms of social media. Research has shown that time distortion is one marker that can assist in classifying those addicted (behaviourally) and those not addicted to social media [2]. In this model of social media addiction, those strongly addicted to social media underestimate time intervals in which they engage in their addictive behaviour(s) [2] across the social media spectrum. And this makes sense, when was the last time you lost track of time as you wondered into the abyss of a news feed, YouTube comment section or some long-gone friend’s Facebook status who you haven’t actually seen since 2010?  After all, we are just bits of incoming data to any social media platform - social networks use the incoming data from millions of social media users daily [3]. This constant stream of data provides incredible information, globally, that can predict, and even detect events [3].  Before social media, (my personal experience) people socialised via other means to validate our social status – I clearly remember a time, before social media, where I used a landline to call friends, organise outings and then return home. Such modes of communication have since been lost (or hidden) to such communicative innovations – smart phones, tablets, gadgets - that have led to vast social extensions, branching and diffusing into immediate and distant social communities  As time seems to be speeding up within our lives, there’s just not enough time to ‘cap’ the app-based social interactions that have become our numbing priority. And this seems logical, as, although we aren’t always aware of it, social media is influencing our identity – in real-time.  How much validation [from social media] do we really need?  How long – provided you have no prior knowledge of – is a piece of string?  The answer is that we cannot get enough validation from our identity-building exercises which we profusely preview and stamp into the social media world. This identity-validation could be linked to a recent study by Wang et al., 2017. In this study measuring psychological effects of posting and viewing selfies and groupies on social media, the researchers found that among a cohort size of n = 275 participants, the majority of results indicated decreased self-esteem from frequent selfie viewing [4]. Contrarily, results also showed an increase in self-esteem from groupie viewing. Interestingly, this study found a decrease in life satisfaction and self-esteem from those high in need of popularity [4].  Learning to adapt As a species, we have a history of adapting to change. Change, from our highly developed energy, communications, trade and science systems. Social media, and its pervasiveness throughout modern society is both connecting and disconnecting us. We are living in the most connected time in human history, and the reality is that social media is here to stay. It has been argued that social media has reached middle age, yet there is still so much individual data feeding into existing markets whilst simultaneously creating new ones.  The flawless obsession behaviour patterns mentioned seemingly place more stress, pressure and anxiety on our attention-seeking role as social media consumers. To the social media companies (the big players), we are simply consumers who require direction for our seemingly directionless – and short - attention-span.  To us, people operating and functioning within the centralised/decentralised structure of social media, it provides a platform to chase on intangible status, perpetuating a feedback loop of adequacy and inadequacy. No one really understands where social media is taking the Homo sapien; we don't really know what we want from it, but it could be a path we have subconsciously chosen to validate our identity. We each are a working progress - that's the human journey.  Let's not become lost pursuing identity through an array of archived selfies, or groupies... References [1] Jennifer Derenne, Eugene Beresin, 2018. Body Image, Media, and Eating Disorders – a 10-Year Update. Academy of Psychiatry, 42:129-134. [2] Ofir Turel, Damien Brevers, Antoine Bechara, 2018. Time distortion when users at-risk for social media addiction engage in non-social media tasks. Journal of Psychiatric Research, Vol. 97, pp. 84-88. [3] Didier Henry, Erick Stattner, Martine Collard, 2017. Social media, diffusion under influence of parameters: survey and perspectives. Procedia Computer Science. DOI: 10.1016/j.procs-. [4] Ruoxu Wang, Fan Yang, Michel M. Haigh, 2017. Let me take a selfie: Exploring the psychological effects of posting and viewing selfies and groupies on social media. Telematics and Informatics, 34, 274-283.