The solution isn't so much hyper-focusing on better self-image as it is not obsessing over self-image at all. //
Self-confidence isn’t a bad thing, but our carefully tended online shrines to our own attractiveness often morph into something else. Even as young people are feeling insufficient while scrolling through others’ curated feeds, they’re usually pouring effort into presenting an appealing and enviable image of themselves. If they aren’t self-critical of that image, they’re likely proud of it.
Aristotle suggested virtue is the point of moderation between two extremes, and that principle holds true in the self-image department. If self-hatred is the vice at one end of the spectrum, self-worship is not the virtue in the middle but the vice at the other end.
Social media doesn’t just make us self-conscious, it often makes us narcissists. While the concerns about its link to depression and suicide should be treated with urgency and compassion, the fact that our society can’t handle seeing put-together snapshots of other peoples’ lives without feeling down about our own is generally further proof of our self-obsession. //
Social media undoubtedly has damaging effects on young users’ self-esteem, but the solution isn’t so much hyper-focusing on self-image as it is not obsessing over self-image at all.
Our culture’s inability to respond to the pitfalls of social media reflects our deeper misunderstanding of what a healthy handle on self-worth looks like. We see it in the madcap frenzy to affirm young people’s self-declared gender identities, body image, and the vaguely-defined category of “lived experiences” as integral factors in the value of a human soul.
Once we start using external metrics to boost our worth, they can just as easily decimate it. If a young woman is self-conscious about her weight, telling her that her extra curves are what makes her valuable is still buying into the idea that a woman’s worth is determined by her dress size.
Too often, we make the same haphazard overcorrection about the effects of social media on kids. If Instagram makes young people self-conscious and self-critical, the reasoning goes, we simply need to shelter their self-esteem. As a result, we see Band-Aid fixes like Instagram removing users’ ability to see likes on other people’s posts (although the app has since backtracked this change). ///
Who you are in Christ is the antidote and fix to self-obsession and other-envy.
