tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/self-image-17354/articlesSelf image – The Conversation2024-02-14T19:22:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2231872024-02-14T19:22:41Z2024-02-14T19:22:41ZWhy banning gym selfies could do us all a lot of good<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575213/original/file-20240213-24-834u6i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=51%2C60%2C5699%2C3768&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Taking selfies to document daily life is now a completely <a href="https://scholarworks.umass.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1138&context=ttra">normalised activity</a> across all <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00007/full">ages and demographics</a>. </p>
<p>At the same time, however, selfies are often <a href="https://theconversation.com/trampling-plants-damaging-rock-art-risking-your-life-taking-selfies-in-nature-has-a-cost-211901">maligned</a> – particularly in specific contexts such as at places of worship, sacred sites, or when animals are <a href="https://au.news.yahoo.com/tourist-fined-instagram-post-iconic-aussie-spot-hard-to-believe-040243447.html">made unwitting participants</a>. </p>
<p>It’s easy to see why taking selfies could be considered inappropriate in such cases. But there’s been much debate about their acceptability in a more casual and frequented arena: the gym.</p>
<p>Lately, gyms the world over have been pushing back against selfies and influencer-culture taking over their spaces, <a href="https://sg.news.yahoo.com/gyms-crack-down-people-filming-103812638.html">citing</a> a risk of injury to patrons, among other concerns.</p>
<p>When considered alongside a rise in toxic influencer culture and widespread body-image insecurity, it could be argued banning gym selfies is a positive step. </p>
<h2>Self-obsession in the digital age</h2>
<p>People’s obsession with their own image is ancient. One of the most famous Greek myths is that of <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-was-narcissus-216353">Narcissus</a>, who gave us the word “narcissist”. </p>
<p>This is the tale of a young man captivated by his own image. Like many Greek myths, the story was meant to serve as a lesson for immoral behaviour. </p>
<p>Yet research shows narcissism is not only <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5783345/">very prevalent</a> in the modern age, in many cases it’s lucratively rewarded. This explains the rise of social media <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0144929X.2016.1201693">influencing</a>.</p>
<p>The potential rewards of “influencer-level” fame push many people to take risks for social media content. This can sometimes lead to injury <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/you-don-t-need-to-jump-off-that-big-rock-the-drive-for-a-perfect-selfie-is-luring-people-to-their-death-20231206-p5epob.html">or even death</a>, to the point that it’s now considered a <a href="https://www.jmir.org/2023/1/e47202/PDF">public health problem</a>.</p>
<p>Various <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/05/geisha-selfies-banned-in-kyoto-as-foreign-tourism-boom-takes-toll">travel destinations</a> are banning <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rebeccahughes/2023/04/20/famed-italian-coastal-town-imposes-selfie-ban-with-300-fine/?sh=5c3ec4934b40">tourists from taking selfies</a> in popular spots to reduce issues of safety and overcrowding. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/dangerous-selfies-arent-just-foolish-we-need-to-treat-them-like-the-public-health-hazard-they-really-are-200645">Dangerous selfies aren't just foolish. We need to treat them like the public health hazard they really are</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Gyms push back against selfies</h2>
<p><a href="https://journals-sagepub-com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/doi/full/10.1177/1461444819891699">Gym selfies</a> can be tied particularly closely to influencer culture. They have a long history on Instagram, the platform that gave birth to <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01634437231155576">fitness influencers</a>. Influencers posting gym selfies will typically gain a lot of views and likes, and in some cases may attract mass followings. </p>
<p>A popular gym chain in Melbourne recently complained of influencers engaging in “<a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/fitness/dohertys-gym-bans-tripods-in-move-targeting-influencers/news-story/2d98028d2f2dc1196584dba59893c7a1">entitled and selfish behaviour</a>” that “should not be tolerated”. Much of this has stemmed from these patrons seemingly concentrating more on generating social media content than their <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/health-and-wellness/popular-gym-franchise-bans-fitness-influencers-from-filming-in-gym-20240203-p5f24q.html">actual performance in the gym</a>. </p>
<p>This <a href="https://dohertysgym.com/">particular gym</a> is now giving members the option to buy a “media pass” if they wish to take photos while working out. The rules primarily target influencers who film their workouts, rather than regular gym-goers who exercise for themselves.</p>
<p>Other chains around the world have also banned <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/nov/04/not-cool-uk-gyms-ban-camera-kit-in-crackdown-on-selfies-and-videos">the use of tripods</a>, which could be considered a tripping hazard. Some have prohibited taking <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gyms-cracking-down-people-filming-workouts-amid-privacy-concerns-uk-2023-11">photos or videos</a> on gym premises altogether.</p>
<p>These establishments often cite safety and <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2015/05/23/gym-selfies/27790675/">privacy concerns</a>. For instance, we’ve seen several examples of <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/dani-mathers-snapchat-bodyshamed-playboy-playmate-victim-speaks-out-spared-jail-a7783786.html">regular gym-goers</a>, often filmed without their consent, fall on the receiving end of abuse or <a href="https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/fitness/exercise/woman-films-man-staring-at-her-like-a-piece-of-meat-at-the-gym/news-story/ddd4d1f7a22fc3f9f18471c88d2eb952">public shaming</a> when they’ve ended up in gym selfies or videos posted online.</p>
<p>Research shows gym selfies can also influence people’s <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10410236.2018.1428404">motivations for exercising</a>. Study participants reported becoming more conscious of their own bodies when they saw gym selfies online. </p>
<h2>Self-care in the social media age</h2>
<p>Banning selfies and influencer behaviour at gyms marks a shift away from the previous encouragement of self-promotional and <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-031-12148-7_1">performative behaviour</a> that many gyms became <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2023-07-17/inside-the-world-of-l-a-s-gym-fluencer-ecosystem">famous for on Instagram</a>. It suggests people are beginning to acknowledge the detrimental aspects of such anti-social exhibitionism.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="TiktokEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.tiktok.com/@chrisxtavita/video/7306346193855057153?q=fitness%20influencer\u0026t=1707796045527"}"></div></p>
<p>In today’s world, the line between personal and performative action is becoming increasingly blurred. And social media are a potent driver of the latter. In a sense, social media’s pervasive presence in our lives has turned <a href="https://www.theseus.fi/handle/10024/801555">many of us into marketers</a> who live our lives out for public consumption. </p>
<p>Online, many of us face near-constant comparisons with others. This promotes an obsession with self-image and pushes us to reach <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jcop.22489">social media-worthy levels</a> of muscularity or leanness.</p>
<p><a href="https://academic.oup.com/her/article-abstract/37/3/167/6583538?login=false">Research shows</a> adolescents in particular can have negative mental health outcomes as a result of self-image comparisons on social media.</p>
<p>These comparisons have led to a culture that promotes (often risky) body <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/ap.12451">modification</a> and <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jcop.22489">enhancement behaviours</a>, including <a href="https://journals-sagepub-com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/doi/full/10.1177/1403494820973096">steroid use</a> and exercise addiction. </p>
<p>Cosmetic procedures such as botox, fillers and <a href="https://journals.lww.com/plasreconsurg/abstract/2006/12000/body_dysmorphic_disorder_and_cosmetic_surgery.43.aspx">reconstruction surgery</a> have also boomed in popularity. An even darker side reveals an increase in <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019074092032082X">eating disorders and body dysmorphia</a>, particularly among young women and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/health/adolescents-boys-eating-disorders.html">adolescent boys</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="TiktokEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.tiktok.com/@tinyfitjen/video/7284051587159411974?q=fitness%20gym%20selfie\u0026t=1707796566556"}"></div></p>
<h2>Exercising for ourselves</h2>
<p>We’re seeing a growing number of fitness influencers leverage their online <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1357034X95001001005">social capital</a> to monetise their bodies. At the same time, these individuals wield significant power <a href="https://journals-sagepub-com.wwwproxy1.library.unsw.edu.au/doi/full/10.1177/1461444818815684">within communities</a> (both online and offline) and have an opportunity to shape norms around fitness and body image. </p>
<p>Recently, a very popular <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2023.103979">bodybuilding influencer</a> called the Liver King – who had claimed to be “natural” – was found to be <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_Vd7i4ZpgA">taking steroids</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2IQGMjLAfC/?igsh=MW41OWdwamg1cXRueg==","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<p>This scandal underscores the need for strategies to reduce harm, and increase public health messaging within digital fitness culture. Banning selfies and harmful influencer antics in the gym might be a start.</p>
<p>It’s not just about preventing accidents such as trips and falls; it could have the added benefit of making influencers rethink their behaviours, tone down self-promotion and reinvigorate a <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/MHSI-08-2020-0051/full/html">sense of camaraderie among gym-goers</a>. </p>
<p>It might just be the beginning of people exercising for themselves and nobody else.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223187/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Samuel Cornell receives funding from Meta Platforms, Inc. His research is also supported by a UNSW University Postgraduate Award funded by the Australian Government.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy Piatkowski is a Lecturer and Researcher at Griffith University. He is also affiliated with Queensland Injectors Voice for Advocacy and Action. </span></em></p>Taking selfies is a normal part of daily life for millions of social media users. But doing so while exercising at the gym can be harmful.Samuel Cornell, PhD Candidate - Social Media and Communication, School of Population Health, UNSW SydneyTimothy Piatkowski, Lecturer in Psychology, Griffith UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1702682021-11-23T13:30:45Z2021-11-23T13:30:45ZThe COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to make a healthy shift in body ideals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429824/original/file-20211102-27-1cwrekq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=28%2C0%2C6202%2C4156&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Behavioral science researchers have found that people tend to have more positive body self-images when they appreciate the body for what it can do – not just how it looks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/young-man-looking-into-the-mirror-in-a-fitness-royalty-free-image/1345958237?adppopup=true">Tempura/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The COVID-19 pandemic has changed everyday life for many people in both trivial and profound ways. Embracing pants without a waistband, trying out creative baking – and perhaps spending a great deal of time sitting, whether for virtual meetings or Netflix binges. </p>
<p>For many people, these kinds of behaviors, coupled with the ongoing stressors and limitations of the pandemic, translated to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/nu13020671">pounds gained</a> and newfound or increased feelings <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2020.110426">of discomfort about body image</a>.</p>
<p>It may seem untimely to think about addressing weight loss or body image while still dealing with the uncertainties and pressures of the ongoing pandemic. However, science has shown that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037//0893-3200.16.1.14">living through disasters and personal upheavals</a> often causes a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037//0893-3200.16.1.14">shift in life priorities</a> and thinking more about <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2009.02466.x">the value of one’s own life</a>. Science also reveals that life disruptions can be a great time to think about, and bring about, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2015.11.008">habit change</a>. </p>
<p>I’m a <a href="https://psy.uncg.edu/people/boseovski/">developmental psychologist</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Gwes7ewAAAAJ&hl=en"></a><a href="https://www.precisionnutrition.com/certified-coach-directory">health coach</a>. I’ve taught university students about cognition and motivation <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Gwes7ewAAAAJ&hl=en">for the past 20 years</a>, as well as about lifelong physical and mental well-being. Behavioral scientists find that when these sorts of upheavals disrupt regular routines, it can become easier than ever before <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/bsp.2016.0008">to get rid of unhealthy behaviors</a> and replace them with positive <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2015.11.008">changes in personal habits</a>.</p>
<p>That said, this isn’t another article about how to lose weight. It’s not intended to provoke a knee-jerk reaction like pursuing a <a href="https://theconversation.com/j-los-body-distressing-or-inspiring-for-mid-life-women-131351">Jennifer Lopez</a> rear or <a href="https://theconversation.com/thor-ragnarok-the-end-of-the-world-but-not-as-we-know-it-86345">Chris Hemsworth-y</a> lats. </p>
<p>Instead, I am inviting people to redefine “the ideal body” by better appreciating the body’s functionality – what it can do – rather than focusing mostly on how it appears. </p>
<h2>Celebrities aren’t good role models</h2>
<p>According to Merriam-Webster, an ideal is a <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideal">“standard of perfection, beauty or excellence</a>.” </p>
<p>However, respecting and appreciating one’s body for what it can do, rather than how it looks or compares to cultural ideals, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2020.11.006">can positively influence body image</a>. For example, behavioral scientists have found that exercising for health, enjoyment and wellness is associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1747-0080.12575">a positive body image and healthy eating habits</a>, while a more negative body image is associated with exercising for appearance-related reasons. </p>
<p>There are physical benefits as well. For example, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102995">putting an emphasis on fitness goals</a>, rather than weight loss, has been shown to enhance longevity. Scientists have also found that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2021-104080">exercise can reduce an adult’s risks for a severe case of COVID-19</a> as well as <a href="https://theconversation.com/exercise-may-help-reduce-risk-of-deadly-covid-19-complication-ards-136922">potentially deadly complications</a>. </p>
<p>On top of all this, as journalist Charles Duhigg reports in his book <a href="https://charlesduhigg.com/the-power-of-habit/">“The Power of Habit,”</a> experts have found that exercise is a keystone habit that often supports adopting other positive health behaviors, such as better nutrition. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Woman running with dog on a beach road." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430079/original/file-20211103-17-307qq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/430079/original/file-20211103-17-307qq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430079/original/file-20211103-17-307qq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430079/original/file-20211103-17-307qq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430079/original/file-20211103-17-307qq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430079/original/file-20211103-17-307qq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/430079/original/file-20211103-17-307qq3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">To successfully change an old habit for the better, it’s important to create an environment that supports the new goal – such as picking out exercise clothes the night before for an early morning walk or run.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/woman-running-with-dog-royalty-free-image/627573747?adppopup=true">Zing Images/Digital Vision via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Appearance and attainability</h2>
<p>As a psychologist, I am aware that we are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.126.3.390">an appearance-oriented culture</a>. I’m not suggesting that people disregard aesthetic goals.</p>
<p>Rather, I’m suggesting that looking to other people to define one’s own body image ideals can be maladaptive. This is especially true when people choose celebrity icons and social media influencers as their ideals. For instance, there’s evidence that comparing one’s own appearance to images of celebrities is associated with both <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105320988312">body image dissatisfaction and disordered eating</a>. </p>
<p>Research suggests that the most effective role models are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/gpr0000059">people with whom one identifies or shares some similarities</a>. This makes it easier to set goals that are attainable, rather than focusing on the public images of celebrity icons. Here, too, it is important that the goals are realistic and applicable to people’s own lives. It’s also important that they avoid making appearance comparisons to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2014.10.004">people that they know</a>, as this can also lead to body dissatisfaction.</p>
<p>Setting attainable goals instead involves focusing on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1559827617729634">specific behaviors</a> to which one can commit. For example, if someone sets a goal of moving with greater ease, they might plan on going to the gym for 30 minutes three times per week. If the goal is fitting into pre-pandemic clothing, they might eliminate a less-than-healthy snack from the daily eating routine. </p>
<p>These are actions that people can control directly, whereas it is unclear how one would achieve the appearance or weight of a particular celebrity or friend.</p>
<h2>A personal example</h2>
<p>Clarifying the personal meaning of “ideal body” isn’t just a thought experiment. Understanding one’s values helps in setting goals and then establishing habits in daily life to achieve them. </p>
<p>Using myself as an example: As a 48-year-old, my personal body image ideal involves becoming as strong as possible as I age. I don’t want to feel or look delicate, so my workouts primarily involve resistance training – with some running thrown in for stress relief. These are attainable because I value the benefits of these activities.</p>
<p>To be sure that I will maintain my exercise routines, I schedule them in advance so that I know exactly how I will fit them into my day rather than leaving it up to chance and forgoing them entirely or doing them too close to my bedtime, which interferes with my sleep.</p>
<p>For role models, I look to the behavior of other strong women – such as the women of <a href="https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/">Girls Gone Strong</a>, an organization that promotes women’s health and strength through fitness – to inspire me to achieve my goals. </p>
<h2>Changing the context</h2>
<p>Even after figuring out personal body image values and setting attainable goals, it can still be hard to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691615598515">let go of older unhealthy habits</a>. Wendy Wood, a University of California psychologist and foremost expert in this arena, has found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2011.10.011">many behaviors are activated automatically</a> by being in a context – a location – that has past associations with that behavior. Further, those associations matter more than a person’s current goals. </p>
<p>[<em>More than 140,000 readers get one of The Conversation’s informative newsletters.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140K">Join the list today</a>.]</p>
<p>Say that attaining one’s body image and fitness goals involves taking a brisk walk every morning. Turning that into a habit means <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10463283.2020.1808936">avoiding past behaviors</a> – don’t set the coffee maker to make the morning java, turn on the television or check the phone before the walk – as well as adopting new behaviors, such as setting out the right clothes the night before and establishing a route in advance. </p>
<p>How to get started? A fruitful first step might be to ask: In what ways has the pandemic crisis changed my life values, priorities and attitudes? The answers may be a good foundation for successfully making a healthy shift in body ideals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170268/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Janet J. Boseovski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>For many, the pandemic has disrupted daily habits around eating and fitness – which makes it a prime time to shake up old assumptions about achieving an ideal body.Janet J. Boseovski, Professor of Psychology, University of North Carolina – GreensboroLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/686332016-11-11T14:02:40Z2016-11-11T14:02:40ZOn the day when all eyes are on them, does anyone ask how veterans see themselves?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145564/original/image-20161111-15727-8nbqrr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Veterans see something very different to the medals, uniforms and poppies of Remembrance Day.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">FACT</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Armed forces’ veterans occupy a unique position in a nation’s imagination, and at this time of year in Europe especially those images are fresh in our mind with the arrival of Remembrance Day. But the symbol of the poppy <a href="https://theconversation.com/poppies-are-a-political-symbol-both-on-and-off-the-football-pitch-68113">has tended to divide as much as unite</a>, as people find themselves torn between feeling respect toward those who have served without wishing to support war.</p>
<p>Remembrance is an aesthetic, recognisable through its uniformed choreography that resounds loudly in the public imagination even as the country falls silent. Debates often start with the meanings attached to nationalism and heroism, prompting debaters to support or resist this tradition – rather than questioning the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-should-we-teach-remembrance-at-school-33818">current function of commemorations</a> in the first place. But despite this debate about their efforts and the institution they represent, the one perspective that is rarely considered is that of the veterans themselves.</p>
<p>With civil-military relations increasingly visible after a decade of wars, remembrance connects the past, present and future – merging past and current conflicts into a single act of remembrance, while enshrining the sacrifice of wars yet to be fought. Armed forces personnel past and present, young and old come to represent our public memories of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/ng-interactive/2014/feb/11/britain-100-years-of-conflict">a hundred years of war</a>.</p>
<p>Leaving aside the evident political problems of bringing together all historical wars and so conflating their very different origins and causes, the story of the veteran is much more complex and contradictory today than in years past, and their experience of being a veteran – should anyone think to ask them – is not the same.</p>
<h2>Remembering them</h2>
<p>On reintegrating into society, veterans can experience homelessness, mental health issues, alcoholism – and they might find themselves in the criminal justice system. For these men and women it can be difficult to identify with the traditional imagery of remembrance: it is hard to connect with a nation that you feel has forgotten you. The symbolism of Remembrance Day doesn’t just divide us watching from the outside, it also <a href="http://www.fact.co.uk/projects/veterans-in-practice/remembered.aspx">sows division among those who have served</a>.</p>
<p>Veterans in the criminal justice system often talk of an “identity crisis”, in part brought on by the binaries of “good and bad” and “us and them” that are an essential mindset for warfare. As they reflect on the time they dedicated their lives to protecting the nation and how now, through incarceration, <a href="https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/microsites/reimagining-conflict-pedagogy-policy-and-arts-group/projects">the nation is protected from them</a>, many have asked me: can I still be a veteran?</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/dO99PQyrcGQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>There has been an effort to counter predictable and shallow representations of veterans, particularly in the US. For example, Craig F Walker’s <a href="http://www.pulitzer.org/winners/craig-f-walker-0">Pulitzer Prize-winning</a> photo essay for the Denver Post showing veterans out of uniform and often struggling to cope. They stand in stark contrast to the traditional view of them as uniformed and bemedalled.</p>
<p>This isn’t a call to discount or discredit the processions and ceremonies that take place – nor to replace them with images of how veterans suffer. It should not be a case of either/or, but rather to add 1,000 different faces from 100 different places to inject some reality into the ritual and to provide a space where veterans can reimagine themselves, as individuals.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jWdzMBLaY5c?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Do I look like a veteran to you?</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/microsites/reimagining-conflict-pedagogy-policy-and-arts-group/projects">Reimagine the Veteran</a> is comprised of academics from a range of disciplines working with artists from the <a href="http://www.fact.co.uk/projects/veterans-in-practice.aspx">Foundation for Creative Technology</a>. Taking stock of these individual accounts from veterans, the project provides a platform for them to reimagine themselves, going beyond gathering alternative stories or images showing veterans as marginalised, to place veterans at the centre of the project. They themselves participate in a process of reimagining and reconstructing themselves. </p>
<p>For example, in “Do I look like a veteran to you?”, our veterans used green screen technology to assemble composite images of themselves that they felt made more sense of their lives than the images presented at memorial parades. We were surprised to find that they were keen not to recreate or revisit traumatic or sensational imagery. The banal and mundane experiences were key: images included veterans dressed in jeans to represent the everyday, and a horse running the wrong way at the Grand National to suggest feeling lost or directionless. Other projects unearthed how traumatic feelings could be triggered by something as simple as the smell of food, or the way the sounds from cars on the road can remind a veteran of helicopters.</p>
<p>War has not only defined the 21st century but has been captured and recorded in ways that were previously impossible. War zones are now visible on television or online and the effects on those involved are much more immediately apparent. Veterans’ experiences have often been mediated through politicians, the media, academics, or charities. This project has given the veterans the opportunity to speak for themselves.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68633/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Murray is affiliated with the Foundation for Creative Technology (FACT), Liverpool. </span></em></p>All eyes are on ex-forces veterans come Remembrance Day. We may see heroes – but no one asks them whether they want to fit that mould.Emma Murray, Senior Lecturer in Criminal Justice, Liverpool John Moores UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/678762016-11-07T14:58:41Z2016-11-07T14:58:41ZFor the first generation to grow up on Facebook, online identities hold both promise and pitfall<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144378/original/image-20161103-25353-x1mwyb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-358342700/stock-photo-small-group-of-friends-taking-selfie-on-a-mobile-phone-young-man-and-women-with-drinks-making-funny-face-while-taking-a-self-portrait-on-smart-phone-having-fun-on-rooftop-party.html?src=i67K2n7pt4QXr7PBnSDrKw-1-9">Jacob Lund/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite suggestions that <a href="https://theconversation.com/logging-out-why-young-people-love-to-hate">young people are losing interest</a> in the platform, its 1.5 billion users still puts Facebook at the centre of social media. The site was launched in 2004, and so those meeting Facebook’s minimum age requirement of 13 will, in 2017, be the first generation for whom Facebook has always existed. </p>
<p>We are now able to reflect on the long-term use of Facebook, which has enjoyed <a href="https://theconversation.com/facebook-is-no-charity-and-the-free-in-free-basics-comes-at-a-price-52839">unrivalled longevity and growth</a>. Those who joined in their early teens are now in their twenties and have “grown up” on Facebook, documenting their life through text, images, videos, and geo-location data such as “check-ins”. We spent <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13676261.2016.1241869">two years interviewing these twenty-somethings</a> to explore how they had documented their experiences of growing up on Facebook.</p>
<p>Their Facebook profiles have become effectively an archive of their lives. As our participants scrolled back through their Facebook timelines with us, they recounted the experiences they had posted to the site: exam results, <a href="http://sms.sagepub.com/content/2/4/2056305116672890.abstract">new romantic relationships, breakups</a>, losing a job, travel, and so on. Sometimes seemingly banal disclosures would remind them of more complex stories that were not immediately obvious. A photo of one participant sleeping on her father’s couch, for example, reminded her of a painful breakup with a partner. For another, the gaps in his timeline elicited stories about his gender transition that led him to switch to a new profile.</p>
<p>As our participants delved into their past many reflected on points in their lives where they were making critical decisions about their futures such as graduation, launching their careers and starting their own families. Some were in their final year of university study and were looking for a job. Today, Facebook profiles have become almost as important as a CV. And, much like the preparation and polishing of a CV, young people are cleaning up their Facebook profiles – prioritising stories about travelling or voluntary work and making the embarrassing details about nights out with friends private or erasing them altogether in an attempt to present a more professional, measured, mature identity.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144374/original/image-20161103-25349-1g1e2nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/144374/original/image-20161103-25349-1g1e2nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144374/original/image-20161103-25349-1g1e2nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144374/original/image-20161103-25349-1g1e2nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144374/original/image-20161103-25349-1g1e2nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144374/original/image-20161103-25349-1g1e2nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/144374/original/image-20161103-25349-1g1e2nk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Job-seekers now perfecting Facebook timelines, not just CVs.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-350559932/stock-photo-angry-entrepreneur-furious-with-a-laptop-working-in-an-office-or-home.html?src=GuJZ6N1gsV8DQVCuYvz-Rg-1-6">Antonio Guillem/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Putting the best face forward</h2>
<p>For many, Facebook has shifted from being the site on which to document carefree student days to a space where a more professional identity can play out. Recruiters have for some time examined social media profiles, something that <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-media-puts-hr-ethics-under-the-spotlight-14208">raises important privacy questions</a>. Facebook even now offers its own, work-focused Facebook app, <a href="https://workplace.fb.com/">Workplace</a>, showing the company’s desire to expand into more areas of our lives.</p>
<p>Two participants in our study were final year medical students. Coached in a job-seeking seminar, they were told that the recruitment team would carry out web searches on the candidates, including Facebook pages. This was an incentive for them to tidy up their profiles, and reflect on how many years of Facebook posts might be interpreted by potential employers and patients.</p>
<p>The sociologist Anthony Giddens <a href="http://www.theory.org.uk/giddens5.htm">uses the expression</a> “the reflexive project of the self” to explain how personal identity is not fixed in stone, but an ongoing project that we constantly work on. This concept is particularly applicable to social media such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter because it captures the way these services are embedded into young peoples’ lives, and their professional development. </p>
<p>By polishing their Facebook profiles they can <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2016.1241869">revise their past</a> – removing pictures or posts that no longer play a role in who they are, or who they wish to portray themselves to be. Entire events that once seemed significant can be removed, having since been diminished into the realm of teenage naivety as priorities, networks, and identities change.</p>
<h2>Competing versions of identity</h2>
<p>These erasures raise important questions. When in decades to come those who have grown up using Facebook are running for public office or moving into positions of power, how might we think differently about what constitutes a professional identity, and its relationship with our younger selves? Will future prime ministers be embarrassed by a love-struck selfie documenting a one month anniversary of their first relationship? Will future CEOs be deemed inappropriate for their jobs because of a flippant post made decades earlier? Should they?</p>
<p>Sports stars and politicians are often shamed and sometimes ruined for things they say on social media. Gymnast <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gymnastics/2016/11/01/louis-smith-given-two-month-suspension-after-appearing-to-mock-i/">Louis Smith</a> and footballer <a href="http://www.theweek.co.uk/uk-news/58754/joey-bartons-best-and-worst-tweets">Joey Barton</a> have found themselves in trouble for their questionable social media posts. Cheerleader Caitlin Davies’s <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/story/2008/11/06/patriots-cheerleader-fired-after-facebook-swastika-photo.html">career was ruined</a> after a photo of her drawing offensive graffiti on an unconscious man was shared on Facebook. </p>
<p>The issue is that the hundreds or thousands of posts that make up twenty-somethings’ social media profiles are disclosures written and shared in the past, often forgotten and buried – until uncovered by someone scrolling back through them. In another case, the UK’s first youth crime commissioner Paris Brown <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-22083032">resigned</a> following the uncovering of apparently racist and homophobic comments posted on Twitter as a younger teenager. </p>
<p>Might this kind of scrutiny intensify as entire lives recorded on social media are dredged up and put under the microscope? Or perhaps our attitudes will change, and they will be appreciated for what they are – moments in time, often from long ago.</p>
<p>For either the carefully edited approach to Facebook or the forgotten posts that come back to haunt their creators, it will be interesting to see the impact on future generations. What, for example, will a child think on scrolling through the Facebook timelines of parents who grew up using social media? Might the edited, polished version of their lives that they have put forward on Facebook stand in place of memory, and so eventually become the recorded story of their lives, however carefully curated and managed?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/67876/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sian Lincoln is affiliated with The British Sociological Association (britsoc.co.uk) and the Association of Internet Researchers (aoir.org). </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brady Robards is affiliated with The Australian Sociological Association (tasa.org.au) and the Association of Internet Researchers (aoir.org). </span></em></p>As the torrent of carefully created social media posts to sites such as Facebook grows, who is to say which is the ‘real’ you.Sian Lincoln, Senior Lecturer in Media Studies, Liverpool John Moores UniversityBrady Robards, Lecturer in Sociology, University of TasmaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/422152015-05-29T10:09:16Z2015-05-29T10:09:16ZSocial media’s charts and metrics turn us into quantified digital versions of ourselves<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82737/original/image-20150522-32555-1o0rmpc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who am I? Better check the stats.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/seeminglee/8061171082">See-ming Lee</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Earlier this month, LinkedIn <a href="http://blog.linkedin.com/2015/05/07/new-analytics-for-publishing-on-linkedin/">announced</a> an update to its users’ already-teeming profile view. The social network now lets you track and chart who’s viewed your posts, complete with a “performance summary” and a colorful demographic breakdown. The new analytics tool extends last year’s <a href="http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/21/linkedin-takes-another-page-from-klout-intros-how-you-rank-in-profile-views/">big feature update</a>, which encouraged users to see how they “rank” (as in, “You rank in the top 48% for profile views among your connections”). The service already let you track your profile views, with an “insights” graph and an invitation to “See how you’re trending.”</p>
<p>On LinkedIn, we see ourselves in reflection – as we do all the time, though perhaps without such bar-graph depth. Life online is a hall of mirrors, where we catch our own visage multiple times a day. There is that scrollable story of our lives, Facebook’s Timeline.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hzPEPfJHfKU?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>On Twitter we may glance at <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/the-unbearable-lightness-of-tweeting/385484/">our profile’s mix of pithy self-description and retweet metrics</a>. Google <a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egosurfing" title="title="Egosurfing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia">“self-Googling”</a> and nearly a million hits come up. We know that those Netflix or Amazon recommendations are generated from a history of our clicks. Even the ads we see are glancing back at us with tailored copy – and we have a dawning sense that that’s really <em>us</em> they’re pitching to.</p>
<p>We’re always encountering these self-likenesses. The sheer quantity and variety matter, but what’s more interesting is that they are <em>not</em> like a reflection in the mirror. Instead of the face and upper torso, we see retweet counts and Google search results. Lots of these self-likeness snapshots confront us as numbers and text. Seeing ourselves like this, tallied and set in type, almost certainly changes the self-image we carry around. The result is not just amped-up self-consciousness, but a different kind altogether – more thing-like and tabular. The self that’s looking back through the glass resembles an instrument panel.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82735/original/image-20150522-32551-1l6aq30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82735/original/image-20150522-32551-1l6aq30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82735/original/image-20150522-32551-1l6aq30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82735/original/image-20150522-32551-1l6aq30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82735/original/image-20150522-32551-1l6aq30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=252&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82735/original/image-20150522-32551-1l6aq30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82735/original/image-20150522-32551-1l6aq30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82735/original/image-20150522-32551-1l6aq30.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=317&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Check your social media instrument panels, recalibrate the self.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/rogersmith/4073598391">Roger Smith</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The reason this matters is that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.34.040507.134725">we never stop revising the picture we have of ourselves</a>. We sense that our identities are fixed in place – rock-solid and immovable – but <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15298868.2014.933712">we’re wrong about that</a>. Each time we see ourselves represented in, for example, our Twitter profile or judged with a flurry of comments on our Facebook status, we <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/symb.123/abstract;jsessionid=E10ABFF1DF9D215ED7D128338F64B19C.f01t03?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false">recalibrate</a>. Yes, these are tiny, iterative acts of self-adjustment; no one fancies himself dashing and mysterious after 150 likes on his filtered Instagram selfie. But the self is, as the sociologist George Herbert Mead <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=R0u2QZHCkE0C&pg=PA182&dq=mead+mind+self+society+eddy&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MS1KVd2XKMTdsASGmYD4Dw&ved=0CCoQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=mead%20mind%20self%20society%20eddy&f=false">observed 80 years ago</a>, “an eddy in the social current and so still a part of the current.” Our lot is continual adjustment, based on what we see in all these glowing LED rectangles.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82733/original/image-20150522-32589-o5yv20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82733/original/image-20150522-32589-o5yv20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82733/original/image-20150522-32589-o5yv20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82733/original/image-20150522-32589-o5yv20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82733/original/image-20150522-32589-o5yv20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82733/original/image-20150522-32589-o5yv20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82733/original/image-20150522-32589-o5yv20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82733/original/image-20150522-32589-o5yv20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">What does that little screen tell you about you?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/68532869@N08/17468693762">Japanexperterna.se</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a result, we’re getting used to seeing ourselves as detached and distributed – as something external to our bodies and inner experience. It’s true that we have been thinking about ourselves as objects to be managed (and promoted) for a long time. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Political-Theory-Possessive-Individualism/dp/0195444019" title="The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke \(Wynford Project\): C.B. Macpherson, Frank Cunningham: 9780195444018: Amazon.com: Books">“Possessive individualism”</a> is a major strand in the history of the Western self, one that political scientist <a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/C._B._Macpherson">CB Macpherson</a> has traced back to the 17th century. Certainly the <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=cy10BQAAQBAJ&pg=PT36&dq=marketing+orientation+fromm&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FaRjVayUGJP7sASIq4PoBg&ved=0CDYQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=marketing%20orientation%20fromm&f=false">injunction to “sell” oneself</a> predates Mark Zuckerberg. But the self-likeness deluge can’t help but amplify the point: you’re the product <em>and</em> its chief marketer. The language of “self-branding,” so recently off-putting and gauche, is now utterly banal – in part <em>because</em> we’re spending so much time tuning and calibrating and viewing our web-based doppelgängers.</p>
<p>These portraits, some of them anyway, are composed in numbers and line charts. <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/">WolframAlpha</a> offers <a href="http://www.wolframalpha.com/facebook/">“personal analytics”</a> for Facebook. The analytics <em>are</em> personal – and colorful. A few dozen charts, maps and tables add up to a numerical portrait of your life on Facebook. There’s your most-liked post, a word cloud culled from your statuses, and a graph tracking the length of your posts over time.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82738/original/image-20150522-32586-ml6md0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82738/original/image-20150522-32586-ml6md0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82738/original/image-20150522-32586-ml6md0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82738/original/image-20150522-32586-ml6md0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82738/original/image-20150522-32586-ml6md0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=982&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82738/original/image-20150522-32586-ml6md0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82738/original/image-20150522-32586-ml6md0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82738/original/image-20150522-32586-ml6md0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1234&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Oh no! Are more followers disengaged than before?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/cambodia4kidsorg/4193739771">Cambodia4kids.org Beth Kanter</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Social media sites like LinkedIn and Pinterest present users with profile pages that resemble gaming leaderboards or a corporation’s annual report. Twitter, on its newish profile page (“a whole new you”) and almost everywhere else, banners your Tweets-Following-Followers triptych. Fitbit’s dashboard could be mistaken for a flight simulator. On some sites we don’t see the numbers, but know they are there. With Facebook’s Timeline, for example, most of us sense that our reverse-chronological self is generated by a likes-and-comments, secret-sauce algorithm. It’s not just the <a href="http://quantifiedself.com/" title="Quantified Self | Self Knowledge Through NumbersQuantified Self | Self Knowledge Through Numbers">hardcore quantified-selfers</a> who get to see themselves reflected in charts and figures.</p>
<p>Data-rich self-representations aren’t new – think report cards and resumes. There are just a lot more of them now. It’s like a perpetual Google alert – and with no real opt-out. The result is something like <em>digital self-consciousness</em>, in both the behind-the-screen, computerized sense and the ones-twos-and-threes numerical sense. If the self, as sociologist <a href="http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Presentation_of_Self_in_Everyday_Life" title="The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia">Erving Goffman famously argued</a>, is a performance, the online enactments are dispersed and disembodied. Plus the scene never ends, and there’s no backstage. Psychologists have written about <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/h0076760" title="PsycNET - Display Record">“public self-consciousness”</a> for decades, but we’re now faced with dozens of always-on selves getting served from data centers thousands of miles away. And these self-likenesses aren’t just out-of-body but digital in that second sense: numbers set in flat sans serif. We’re used to seeing the dashboard self, in other words, and its fun-house, bits-and-binary reflection doesn’t faze us.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82739/original/image-20150522-32583-mtnxbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82739/original/image-20150522-32583-mtnxbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/82739/original/image-20150522-32583-mtnxbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82739/original/image-20150522-32583-mtnxbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82739/original/image-20150522-32583-mtnxbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82739/original/image-20150522-32583-mtnxbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82739/original/image-20150522-32583-mtnxbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/82739/original/image-20150522-32583-mtnxbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">You are the great and powerful Wizard of Oz.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/101018579@N06/12470355675">Dustin O'Donnell Design</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So the online self is both external and metricized. Taken together, these two traits encourage an Oz-like mentality. We’re pulling levers and uploading profile pics, or we’re anxious that we haven’t fed our Klout-filtered <em>amour-propre</em> lately. We come to see ourselves as fungible objects, requiring constant work – product-improvement work – to exchange for friendship, employment and self-esteem. Those are good, necessary things, of course. But Facebook and its rivals need us to keep preening, posting and working. That way they can deliver tailored ads that, in their targeted flow, look like us.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/42215/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jefferson Pooley does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As social media slices and dices us into profile view rankings, numbers of likes and retweets, and follower engagement data, we constantly reflect on and recalibrate our digital selves.Jefferson Pooley, Associate Professor of Media & Communication, Muhlenberg CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.