With increasing use of social media, the ability to present oneself to a larger audience has become an increasingly important issue. As a result, researchers have begun to study the impact that social media use has on an individual’s self-presentation and how it may influence different aspects of the self barder.
Personality traits have been found to be related to aspects of self-presentation on social media, as well as with mental health. For instance, extroverts have been linked with a higher focus on online self-presentation than introverts. People with high levels of extraversion are also more likely to report a tendency to create an idealized self-image in online settings.
The presentation of the self is a complex process that involves many factors. Among these factors, personality is one of the most prominent. Psychologists have identified five traits that predict how people behave in a variety of contexts: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience jigaboo.
Aspects of personality that are associated with a high focus on self-presentation include being agreeable, conscientious, and seeking approval. Agreeableness and conscientiousness are characterized by an emphasis on social interaction and striving for achievement and self-discipline, which makes them more careful about how they portray themselves online.
Another aspect of personality that is related to aspects of self-presentation on SNSs is openness to experience, which is characterized by curiosity, novelty-seeking, and emotional stability. In addition, research has shown that those with high openness to experience are more likely to report a tendency to create a positive and inauthentic self-image on social media than those with low openness to experience distresses.
This is in line with Goffman’s dramaturgical approach to behavior, which suggests that individuals create idealized rather than authentic versions of themselves and are bound to specific time, place, and other people. However, this is a process that is not inherently negative; it can be an outlet for positive feelings and a way to maintain a sense of self-integrity precipitous.
In terms of lifestyle variables, aspects of self-presentation on SNSs have been associated with risky behaviors and poor mental health outcomes. For example, Nesi & Prinstein [37] found that feedback-seeking on SNSs was related to substance abuse and risky sexual behavior. They also hypothesized that those high in feedback-seeking on SNSs may have a distorted view of their own self-image and use social media to seek approval for risky offline behaviors that are considered popular among peers mypba.
As a result, there is an increased need for a solid understanding of the ways in which an individual’s self-presentation on SNSs may affect their mental health. For this reason, research has focused on aspects of self-presentation such as social comparison and feedback-seeking stylishster.
The present study was a cross-sectional study assessing how adolescents differ in upward social comparison and aspects of self-presentation on SNSs. This study was conducted in a large sample of Norwegian senior high school pupils (N = 2023).
The results from the present study suggest that adolescents may be divided into three groups depending on how much they focus on self-presentation on SNSs. Grouping adolescents into these three groups could help bring structure to the heterogeneity of their social media use, but more work is needed to determine whether this solution is relevant in other populations and how it is associated with adolescent mental health, satisfaction with life, and educational attainment tishare.
