Generation Z’s constant social media use creates an outside-looking-in dependency on others for identity
Evidence
These feelings of disorientation and isolation suggest a psychological dependency on the “others,” and additional studies only deepen our understanding of how “Generation Z,” the demographic cohort born in and after 1996—the first group of digital natives, with no memory of life before the rise of surveillance capitalism—relies on a range of social media for psychological sustenance as they bounce between four or five platforms more or less simultaneously. Consider first the older cohorts. A 2012 survey concluded that emerging adults devote more time to using media than any other daily activity, spending nearly twelve hours each day with media of some form. By 2018 Pew Research reported that nearly 40 percent of young people ages 18–29 report being online “almost constantly,” as do 36 percent of those ages 30–49. Generation Z intensifies the trend: 95 percent use smartphones, and 45 percent of teens say they are online “on a near-constant basis.” If that is how you spend your days and nights, then the findings of a 2016 study are all too logical, as 42 percent of teenage respondents said that social media affects how people see them, having adopted what the researchers call an outside-looking-in approach to how they express themselves. Their dependency penetrates deeply into their sense of well-being, affecting how they feel about themselves (42 percent) and their happiness (37 percent). — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1425
Categorization
- SEED: The aggregate statistics on near-constant online presence plus the ‘outside looking in’ self-objectification could anchor an essay on how identity formation itself is being outsourced to algorithmic audiences.
- XREF: connects to: Social media makes others’ identities partly uncontrollable through third-party disclosure — Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity,…, 637; Facebook exploits the psychological needs of young people during identity formation. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1421; Disconnection from social media can impair students’ sense of self-identity — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1424 (+6 more)
Broader Connections
- Social media reframed self-identity as a personal brand selling attention
#expands(0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1031 - Social media does not transmit identity but requires its continuous self-production.
#qualifies(0.80) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 1463 - Social media intensifies but did not invent adolescent craving for peer recognition.
#qualifies(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1439