Several decades ago, communications philosopher Marshall McLuhan spoke about the development of the Global Village and how the evolution of new technologies would help connect people on opposite sides of the world, creating online communities that would break boundaries and borders. While this change has been recognized, so too has the idea explored by his successors in which while individuals were expected to look at others in the world through a telescope, they have alternatively developed the tendency to look at themselves through a microscope. As the era of worldwide connectivity began, so did the era of ‘me, me, me’. Both the hardware and the software of the new millennium, inclusive of the iPhone’s forward-facing camera, and apps that allow one to fix blemishes and whiten teeth, have adapted to allow this change to an inward focus. While this has certainly caught on, it has also begun to cause a lot of problems. The act of posting about the self began to be seen as a negatively self-centered one when Facebook NewsFeeds were filled with egotistic stories and ‘Selfies,’ photos of the self. Shortly after, the application Instagram was created, where the occurrence of the Selfie was magnified to a greater degree. This intensive focus inward, and the way these pieces of media are shared, have made some individuals reliant on the positive expressions of others for self-confidence and social approval. When self-esteem is intertwined with how many ‘likes’ a photo gets on a mobile application, we start to see a shift in how self-awareness is formed, what people will do for this approval, and how some will react to a lack of attention.
It should first and foremost be noted that these behaviors are not entirely universal or experien...
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Main characters often struggle with finding their self-worth, but the distinction between self-worth and selfishness may often be unclear. The protagonists of both Anthem, by Ayn Rand, and Siddhartha, by Herman Hesse, fluctuate between being self-aware and being selfish. If Equality is an honest narrator, then to describe him as selfish would be an incorrect understanding, because the laws in place by Equality 7-2521’s community strips every one of their individuality and, therefore, their humanity; however, to describe Siddhartha as selfish is a more accurate understanding, because Siddhartha never lost his humanity and only strives for his own desires.
For centuries, humans have used their interaction with one another to help shape outsiders' perceptions of them. Often communication experts refer to this as constructing one’s “social identity.” For many years, this projection of self-came through interpersonal communication; face-to-face communication or other forms of personal interaction. In the progress of technology, this development of one’s personal attributes has come to include photographs, letters, published and unpublished writings, and physical attributes. Many aspects of a person’s “identity” as others see it are difficult and almost impossible to define. In the modern age, such vague characteristics are both helped and hindered by using social media and the internet to “construct”
Deborah Tolman author of “Dilemmas of Desire” dwells on uncovering a wealth of feelings about sexuality from teenage girls who are faced with a lot of struggles in developing sexual identity and detached from their sexuality. One of her main argument is centered on the juxtaposition of media representations of girls as highly sexualized objects. For instance, “the urban girl is viewed as the overly sexual young jezebel. Latinas are often eroticized as exotic, sexually alluring and available.” (Tolman, pg.170). I agree with this statement due to simple fact that we are living in a highly sexualized cultural milieu and evidence of sexualization is seen through mainstream culture. Images such as Sarah Bartman depict African American/ urban portrayal of sexual imagery formed socio-historical
In the article “What Your Selfies Say About You” by Peggy Drexler, she talks about self-portraits also known as the “selfie”, and how it has taken over social media and added a manifestation to society’s obsession with looks. Taking a self-portrait can be positive in the sense that you are proud of your image and are not scared to share it with others helping boost up your self-esteem. Although this may help others by persuading them to not be ashamed to share their true image, Drexler believes this can also affect other individuals whose focus is only on looks making them feel self-conscious about their looks. A recent study out of the UK found that the selfie phenomenon may be damaging to real world relationships, concluding that both excessive
For a long period of time the question of “What is the self?” has been debated by many people. According to Bermudez, Ma...
The first unit on our textbook Interactions by Ann Moseley and Jeanette Harris talks about the self-concept. It is hard to find a definition for the self-concept because it is certain beliefs about ethnicity, religion, and personalities combined. This unit has a number of readings by various authors where it shows struggles with the self. Self-identity, ethnic backgrounds, and self-esteem are the major aspects of those readings. After reading their writings I found that I could relate to their experiences. The three readings that got my attention were “Zero” By Paul Logan, “I’m Just Me” by Lylah Alphonse, and “The Jacket” by Gary Soto.
Girls are constantly pressured into conforming into the media’s standards of beauty. This is reiterated through the article “The ‘Beauty’ Ideal.” This except enabled to gain more knowledge about how the media portrays the ideal standards of beauty. From a young age, women are compelled to conform to the standard size and looks of beautiful models. I learned that beauty is a huge aspect of corporate capitalism and consumerism as a large amount of money goes into fashion, cosmetics, and entertainment industries. The debate concerning voluntarily stripping greatly aided in expounding my understanding of beauty ideals of women where women, such as those on Girls Gone Wild, are tall, blonde, and skinny which only reinforces America’s beauty standard. In addition, our culture automatically associates sex with gender, giving males and females separate gender performances. I learned that through sexual scripts, society sets a guideline in which men and women are supposed to act and feel as humans. Tough Guise addressed this problem in showing the many ways that boys and men act tough to be seen as masculine, powerful, and violent. Women, however, are supposed to follow the script of being emotional, beautiful, and dependent on
In popular culture, an altruistic person is connoted with being a genuine individual that plays as a role model for others, but an egotistic person is synonymous with an evil beast that squashes over anything to attain his own end. However, the views of Ayn Rand heavily collide with these mainstream perceptions of Altruism and Egoism. Rand believes that the basic principle of altruism "is that man has no right to exist for his own sake, his service to others is the only justification of his existence, and that self-sacrifice is his highest moral duty, virtue and value."(1) Thus, she conceptualizes altruism as an ethical dilemma for the person whom sacrifice is demanded. Furthermore, she delineates egoism as the theory, which holds that "it is each person’s responsibility to choose his goals and values by use of his independent reasoning mind; and that it is his right to pursue these goals in quest of his own selfish, personal happiness." Accordingly, she insists that ego is what every man needs in pursuit of his happiness. In her bestselling book, The Fountainhead, Rand demonstrates her ideas of altruists and egoists through the characters Catherine Halsey, Peter Keating, Ellsworth Toohey, and Howard Roark. Through the illustration of their lives, Ayn Rand creates an enthralling case for the inferiority of altruists and the superiority of egoists.
The image of female sexuality in our society has been corrupted in Levy’s opinion, tainted by the countless industries profiting off of the sexualization of women, who are the main driving force behind our current day raunch culture. Take Girls Gone Wild (GGW from henceforth), GGW is a perfect example of how the younger generation of women is effected by our current day raunch culture. GGW often targets women whom they see as the average looking girl, “the girl next door” so to speak. They are often college students ...
There you are holding your camera an arm’s length away from your face, posing in the most flattering position to capture your best angle. There you are taking a photo of yourself to share with all of your Facebook friends. Taking a self-portrait photo, also known as a selfie, is something almost everyone has done in this new generation. This action is typically done without a second thought. In Alex Williams’ article “Here I Am Taking My Own Picture” that second thought is provoked through exploring the quickly spreading trend of self-portrait photography. In the article while Williams’ provides interesting examples on a changing generation as this trend progresses through social media and modern technology; Williams also leaves something to be desired within the article due to a lack of direction in the author’s stance on the topic.
According to a Dian de Vries and Rinaldo Kühne (2015), Facebook is by far the most popular social networking site worldwide with over one and a half billion active users every month. Sites like Facebook are most popular among emerging adults, making them the most vulnerable group to the negative effects social media can have on well being for a number of reasons. Individuals in this age range are starting to form and solidify self-perceptions which are directly linked to one’s well-being. Negative self-perceptions are associated with symptoms of depression and positive self-perceptions are associated with a healthier, more positive well-being. (de Vries & Kühne,
Social media has taken over the world of communication and has changed the ways in which we communicate on a daily basis. It is extremely influential on our lives because of how easily we are able to access these mediums of communication. I’m intrigued by the effects that social media has on people’s perceptions of their self-worth. Almost all of the social networking sites seem to measure, at least to some extent, the popularity level or status of its users. All have a number of ‘followers’ or ‘friends’ which if there’s a high number of followers or friends that seems to elevate a person’s popularity level or their online status. This in turn could make their self-esteem or ego rise, whereas if their follower level is low it may disappoint or aggravate that user. All of these sites also offer areas where followers can ‘like’ pictures or posts, ‘comment’ on these pictures/posts, ‘share’ the post, and what have you. How important are ‘likes’ and whatnot to our actual self-esteem? Do we value online popularity the same way or more than we value real-life interactions? How could this affect the mental health of those who use these networking sites? Is this kind of online community promoting more narcissistic persons in the community? So many questions… I’m not alone in asking these questions. I’m convinced that social media has a negative influence on the self-esteem of its users.
These things have become so common that not having them almost makes it seem like there is something missing. Because of features such as these, it is incredibly easy to share every aspect of what we are reading, doing, eating and listening to with everyone in our social networks. While this has meant incredible advances in the way we interact with our world, it has also fundamentally changed the way our social relationships are created and sustained. Social medial led users to have false impression of others and changed our feelings. Because social media users tend to only show the most positive aspects of their lives, social media users have a false sense of reality when it comes to how they seem themselves, how others see them and how they see other people. “It is not difficult to say that social media effect our perception of others” (Goshgarian213).
The online photograph sharing, storytelling app has challenged the way people identify themselves. It has help raise the question of which identity is more important in today’s digital age? Self-identity is the “verbal conceptions we hold about ourselves and our emotional identification with these conceptions.” Social identity is the “expectations and opinions that others have of us.” (Kitzmann, Lecture 12) Instagram allows its users to post photographs of anything they choose, however at times these photos give people to challenge the idea of appearance versus reality. The use of photo editing apps is just an example of a way that users are able to fix the imperfections they see in order to make the picture “instagram worthy.” The appearance of the photograph is flawless when in reality it took several minutes (or hours) to take over fifty selfies and to edit the perfect one before it was considered for posting. This is how the app challenges hegemonic practices of beauty. In the fall of 2015, a model by the name of Essena O’Neil decided to quit instagram. For most people, they would assume that she deleted the app or deactivated her account; however she kept her account running only to re-caption her old pictures. O’Neil went back to her old posts and changed their captions, exposing all of
The way social media is utilized in modern society, it has become more than simple platforms in order to stay connected. It has become a platform to broadcast you, to sell the image of the life that the user wants to portray. Now selling yourself as an internet presence is possible, and is done regularly with platforms such as YouTube, Twitter, and the focus of this essay, Instagram. This current utilization of social media is a result of the established capitalist institution that our society is a part of. Yet is it capitalism that is made to be the villain in social media, that now that social media is such a widespread entity, capitalist power players are able to take advantage of the common social media user, all while they are completely