The Cyber Effect

by Mary Aiken

  As with so many personality traits, psychologists have defined a spectrum of narcissism—generally assessed by the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI). Individuals with high scores demonstrate an inflated sense of their own importance, grandiosity, extreme selfishness, enormous self-regard, and a deep need for admiration. Behind the mask of ultraconfidence, their self-esteem is very fragile and vulnerable to criticism.

  Why get into all this?

  Because teenagers (as well as children) can display narcissistic-type traits due to the simple fact that their sense of self, or “self-concept,” is still being formed. They can seem to be uncaring about others because they are distracted by the work of creating an identity. Teenagers will try on new selves and new clothes and new hairstyles to the point of total disengagement with anything else going on in their family life or home. For a teenager, this sort of experimentation, along with risk-taking, is one way that identity is formed. Going too far is part of the process—almost a requirement.

  Who am I today? Who do I want to be tomorrow morning? They look for answers in the feedback they receive from their peers. And today, to a greater and greater degree, this feedback happens online, not just from their friends but in free online astrological profiles, personality questionnaires, and a plethora of phone apps that will analyze their handwriting, music tastes, food preferences, and even bathing styles. (My favorite: an app that analyzes your personality based on how you take a shower.)

  This incessant need for personality feedback is what fuels the popularity of annoyingly ubiquitous online tests, like BuzzFeed’s “Which Disney character are you?” and the online permutations of the Myers-Briggs personality inventory, now loosely applied to an array of scientifically dubious outcomes, like “Which Personality Type Makes the Most Money?”

  Teenagers are consumed by their own reflections, in other words, hoping to figure out who they are. What happens when the bathroom mirror, where teens used to stare at themselves, is replaced with a virtual mirror—a selfie that they just took with their phone?

  Monkeys and Mirrors

  In a famous study done forty years ago, great apes—chimpanzees, orangutans, and gorillas—born in the wild were placed before a full-length mirror on a wall. At first, the wild chimps reacted as if another chimp had appeared in the room; they vocalized and made other threatening gestures at the mirror. After two or three days, they began to understand the image in the mirror as a reflection of themselves in some way. Interestingly, they began exploring their own bodies before the mirror—studying parts of themselves that they hadn’t seen before, or couldn’t see without the use of a mirror.

  In psychology, one way to describe what happens in front of a mirror is called mirror-image stimulation, referring specifically to “a situation in which an organism is confronted with its own reflection in a mirror.” An animal that shows signs of recognizing the image in the mirror as its own is said to have “passed the mirror test,” which is strong evidence of having developed self-concept. This is not innate, but learned.

  Self-concept is used in human social psychology to describe how people think about, evaluate, or perceive themselves. The actual definition is “the individual’s belief about himself or herself, including the person’s attributes and who and what the self is.” A monkey that has self-concept demonstrates an awareness of a self that is separate and distinct from others, as well as constant.

  Early socialization has been shown to impact a monkey’s behavior in front of a mirror—and presumably its development of self-concept. In a comparative study of rhesus monkeys born in the wild and rhesus monkeys raised in captivity or isolation (“isolates”), there were distinct differences in mirror studies. Wild monkeys raised around other wild monkeys, and therefore socialized, grew uninterested in the mirror eventually—and returned to a live group of fellow monkeys for physical interaction. But monkeys raised in isolation did not. The isolates remained fascinated with their own reflections to the point of disinterest in others.

  This study may tell us something important about children and teenagers, since looking at your own image on the screen of a mobile phone is a form of mirror-image stimulation. I know I’m comparing teenagers to monkeys, but bear with me.

  What are teenagers learning about themselves by looking at their own selfies? Could this impact the development of self-concept? The study also raises this question: Could young people who have grown up with too much technology and not enough face-to-face interaction with peers remain more isolated, like the monkey isolates, retreating to the comfort of their own digital reflection rather than turning to their friends or family for comfort and physical interaction?

  Could this cyber effect encourage children or young teenagers to lose interest in others—or never develop it in the first place?

  Since there hasn’t been time for proper developmental studies in this area, we just don’t know. But in the case of many human and primate studies, the similarities are worth noting—and it would be a mistake to dismiss them. When humans are born with visual defects and then undergo operations that give them sight for the first time, their initial response to a mirror is the same as a monkey’s initial response: They believe they are looking at another person, not themselves. Human babies respond similarly, first seeing their reflection in a mirror as a playmate. Most children don’t show signs of self-recognition until they are approaching two years of age.

  Humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers’s work is valuable in terms of illustrating how a young person develops identity. He described self-concept as having three components:

  1. The view you have of yourself—or “self-image.”

  2. How much value you place on your worth—or “self-esteem.”

  3. What you wish you were like—or “the ideal self.”

  I think we should consider adding a fourth aspect of “self” to Rogers’s list. In the age of technology, identity appears to be increasingly developed through the gateway of a different self, a less tangible one, a digital creation.

  Let’s call this “the cyber self”—or who you are in a digital context. This is the idealized self, the person you wish to be, and therefore an important aspect of self-concept. It is a potential new you that now manifests in a new environment, cyberspace. To an increasing extent, it is the virtual self that today’s teenager is busy assembling, creating, and experimenting with. Each year, as technology becomes a more dominant factor in the lives of teens, the cyber self is what interacts with others, needs a bigger time investment, and has the promise of becoming an overnight viral celebrity. The selfie is the frontline cyber self, a highly manipulated artifact that has been created and curated for public consumption.

  But how do we explain that weird, vacant, unmistakable expression on the faces of many selfie subjects? The eyes look out but the mind is elsewhere.

  The virtual mirror could be socially isolating, except for one thing. The selfie can’t exist in a vacuum. The selfie needs feedback. A cyberpsychologist might say that’s the whole point of a selfie.

  Selfies ask a question of their audience: Like me like this?

  The Psychology of Feedback

  To understand feedback more deeply, we need to go way back to the work of sociologist Charles Horton Cooley in 1900, decades before the advent of the Internet or when monkeys were stuck in front of mirrors. Cooley came up with what he called the looking-glass theory. (Looking glass is an archaic English term for mirror.) Cooley used the concept of a person studying his or her own reflection as a way to describe how individuals come to see or know themselves.

  In the case of Cooley’s looking glass, the information that we use to learn about ourselves isn’t provided in a mirror’s reflection. It is provided by others—their comments about us, the way they treat us, and things they say. In the looking-glass self, a person views himself or herself through others’ eyes and in turn gains identity. In other words, he argued, the human self-concept was dependent upon social feedback. Philosopher
William James, the so-called father of psychology, expanded this idea by pointing out that individuals become different people, and express their identity in different ways, depending on whom they are with. He argued that we could potentially have as many “selves” as we have friends, family members, and colleagues who know us.

  Now let’s fast-forward to the next century and do the math—and consider the psychology of this effect in cyberspace. If you have a repertoire of many selves—potentially as many as people who know you—social media could exponentially expand the number of selves you create. Is your “self” environment-specific? Are you the same person on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat, and LinkedIn? Does this new explosion of selves cause a splintering of identity or, particularly for young teenagers who are going through critical stages of identity formation, cause developmental problems? And what about critical feedback?

  Presenting yourself to the world is a risky business. It’s hard to imagine an individual alive who hasn’t experienced some form of rejection, subtle or strong, embarrassing or humiliating. But you can also be accepted for the self you present—and feel rewarded by pleasant feelings of pride and affection.

  Let’s imagine you have just turned thirteen. The five years ahead of you are a natural time for questioning and seeking. You’ll be trying new clothes, mannerisms, friends, interests, and pastimes. You’ll probably begin experimenting with what you think of as adult behavior. This helps you make sense of the self within, as you unconsciously piece together an identity, like a collage. You are working to create a constant, steady, reliable, knowable, and familiar self.

  What kind of information—or feedback—is the virtual mirror going to give you? In this regard, the cyber environment may be much more overwhelming than the real world. To begin with, the sheer number of “friends” has grown, and therefore the volume of feedback will be far greater. Prior to the Internet, a teenager would have a limited number of social groups to juggle—family and extended family, schoolmates, maybe neighbors. Now the number of social groups is potentially limitless. How would you begin to interpret, filter, and process that vast amount of information coming from so many different quadrants?

  Imagine how confusing and potentially unsettling it could be. A virtual tsunami of feedback to process.

  Now factor this in: The cyber self is always under construction, psychologically and digitally. Even while the real you is sleeping, the cyber you continues to exist. It is “always on”—evolving, updating, making friends, making connections, gaining followers, getting “likes,” and being tagged. This can create a feeling of urgency, a continuous feedback loop, a sense of needing to invest more and more time in order to keep the virtual self current, relevant, and popular.

  This may explain the obsessive interest among teens in curating their selfies. When the process of identity formation in real life becomes confusing and difficult to control, as it is for most teenagers at some point, what could be more satisfying than being able to perfectly calibrate and manage the portrait that the online world sees? To some extent, we all engage in image management, but it now begins at an earlier age, and in some cases before identity has been properly formed. This may lead to identity confusion.

  After all, which matters the most: your real-world self or the one you’ve created online?

  Probably the one with greater visibility.

  Narcissism

  Narcissism, a tendency found in teenagers during their identity-formation years, is a term taken from Greek mythology, after Narcissus, a very handsome young man with a fantastic physique. One day he wanders into the woods and discovers a pond. When he leans down to drink water, he sees his own reflection and falls in love with himself. Realizing that the love he seeks is impossible, he despairs. Unable to leave the pond and his own reflection, he dies.

  An individual with extreme narcissism demonstrates preoccupation with self and how he or she is perceived by others. Lack of empathy and selfishness are both traits. A normal developing child displays what looks like narcissistic and self-centered behavior. A toddler who will not share toys is self-centered. A child who thinks the world revolves around them is also rarely interested in the adults around, or doesn’t show curiosity or empathy for others. For them, others don’t really exist, except to serve the needs of the child.

  There’s even a study by Piaget to prove this, the famous three mountains task. In the study, a child is taken to stand on one side of a table where a model of a mountain range has been placed. On the opposite side of the table, a doll sits in a chair. The child is shown sets of drawings and asked to pick out the scene that shows the mountain scene the way the child sees it. Nearly all kids can do this without difficulty.

  The child is then asked to pick out the drawing that shows how the doll sees the mountain scene. Most children can’t do this. They will pick the drawing that shows their own view. This experiment is used to demonstrate how young children have difficulty imagining the perspective of others.

  Over time, self-centeredness lessens. By preadolescence, children have learned to be more other-directed, courteous, kind, and empathetic. They have been reminded—by example, by parents, and by other figures of authority—that others exist in the world and others matter.

  Once they are teenagers, though, they can become more self-centered again. This comes with their developmental preoccupation with creating their identity. Erik Erikson described this period of development between ages twelve and eighteen as a stage of identity versus role confusion, when individuals become fascinated with their appearance because their bodies and faces are changing so dramatically. Once this stage of development is finished, the self becomes reintegrated—and wants to act in the world, and get out of “self.” The discomfort about appearance fades away. Usually by the late teens, individuals become more self-accepting.

  Narcissistic behavior, in other words, is considered a natural part of development and is usually outgrown. But according to recent studies of young adults, it would seem that fewer of them are moving on beyond their narcissistic behavior. A study of U.S. college students found a significant increase in scores on the Narcissistic Personality Inventory between 1982 and 2006. It’s pretty interesting that this change coincides with the rise of the Internet.

  Of course, there could be lots of contributing factors for the rise in narcissism. It could be caused by a generation of indulgent parents who have overpraised their children. (A study done by Ohio State University suggests that constantly praising kids for their tiniest of accomplishments may have the unintended side effect of developing an overinflated ego.) The predominance of narcissism could have occurred alongside the rise of a more individualistic society. The “dark side” of self-reliance and individualism is an increase in self-regard.

  Social-networking sites encourage the sharing of personal information, which can result in a preoccupation with self. Certainly, there has never been a time in history when people were expected to show off their accomplishments, their travel photos, their new clothes and hairstyles, and every restaurant meal, to such an extent. The social pressure for young people is tremendous to create and share photos—and participate in this hyper-celebration of self. It’s interesting to think about how humans have colonized the Internet and turned it from a platform of sharing into a platform for self-promotion.

  Some amount of narcissism is considered healthy, as I’ve said. But I wouldn’t want to overstate how healthy. There is a line between feeling good about yourself and grandiosity, which can interfere with relationships and become dysfunctional. Being high on the narcissism spectrum is a tough, usually problematic way to go through life. Like the eponymous Narcissus, securing a lasting and rewarding relationship with another human being often eludes these individuals. Sometimes they resort to marrying another narcissist and forming a “mutual admiration society” (the marriage in the Netflix show House of Cards is a perfect example of this), although these relationships are often volatile and rarely
last.

  I will explore this a bit more in the next chapter, about cyber-relationships, but the term “narcissistic relationship” may qualify as an oxymoron. Let’s hope today’s teenagers aren’t on this path. But since they’ve been hanging out in cyberspace during their developmental years, it is too early to tell.

  Filtering Your Ideal Self

  In Oscar Wilde’s philosophical novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, an impossibly beautiful young man, Dorian Gray, has his full-length portrait painted in oil by a famous artist. The portrait is so lovely, it saddens Dorian to think that in his real life, day by day, he will age and become an old man while the portrait remains spellbinding. It will stay perfect and always remind him of what he’s lost. Devastated by this thought, he makes a wish—something like a deal with the devil. He wishes that the painting would grow old instead of him.

  As the years pass, Dorian descends into hedonism and immoral behavior to the point of depravity (the kind of stuff I covered in chapter 1, “The Normalization of a Fetish,” which you may still be trying to get out of your head). But his wish comes true. He never appears to age. Only his portrait shows the ravages of time and the effects of his corruption. You would think this might be an ideal situation, but his eternally young and beautiful appearance leaves him isolated from real life—from love, the effects of time, and eventually morality. His portrait grows uglier and more sinister every day, reflecting Dorian’s inner reality. The painting becomes so horrific that he decides to put it in a locked room where nobody can see it.