Authenticity in the Age of Instagram

Over the past decade, Instagram has become one of the most popular and widely used apps in modern history. Though it’s touted as a social platform, its underlying allure is the opportunity that it affords us to curate and manage our identities. While we generally assume our presence online is an extension of who we are in real life, it can be better understood as the depiction of our ideal self. As we funnel carefully selected glimpses of our lives down the social media pipeline, other users piece together a picture of who we are in their minds. Even if our intent is to be transparent, there’s only so much we can share and parts of us are always left out of the narrative. The reality is, our online identities can never be truly authentic because they are constructed through a process of picking and choosing what to post. In order to maximize authenticity on Instagram, we have to cultivate it in real life. 

As humans we evolved to tell stories. Storytelling allows us to make sense of our experiences and better understand ourselves. Our inclination toward storytelling is naturally intertwined with identity and explains why we gravitate towards Instagram--it satisfies our desire to tell people who we are. However, there are important distinctions between storytelling in real life and on an app. When we share stories in a social setting, there is a natural back and forth, and receiving feedback from others facilitates emotional processing and learning. Social networking apps, on the other hand, are often one-sided, which makes storytelling on these platforms more about performing for a public audience rather than being a connective social process. Online, we can simply omit or delete the pieces that don’t fit neatly into the story we want to tell, whether it’s the freckles on our face or the quirky habits that don’t fit our polished image online.  

In recent years, the contrived nature of Instagram has become increasingly less obvious. Many social influencers have abandoned the “look” of glossy perfection for a more casual, relatable type of branding. By trading crisp, overly edited self portraits for grainy, of-the-moment snaps, it appears as if there is no calculated consideration at play, but behind closed doors influencers continue to engage in the same obsessive tailoring of their accounts. Even their most “imperfect” posts have been carefully constructed, suggesting to other users that every spontaneous moment of life should exist in support of a predetermined personal narrative. Instagram makes it all too easy to conceal the complicated nature of our identities in order to create a more contained and palatable version of ourselves. Our story, ever so influenced by the unspoken mandate: everything you do, and subsequently share, should contribute to one consistent story of who you are. 

Some might wonder what’s so troubling about portraying an ideal version of ourselves online, and it’s a valid question to ask. A one-dimensional identity, which is what instagram demands from us, is in direct conflict with the complexity of human nature. From a neurological perspective, the paradox of identity is partially due to how our brains are designed. Our brains are not monoliths that create fixed personality traits, rather, they consist of a complex and ever-changing interaction between neural systems which shape who we are. Every skill, value or trait that we identify with is associated with one of these systems in the brain. Every flaw, inconsistency, or contradiction we contain is also related to whichever system is activated in a given moment. The way our traits are expressed change day-to-day based on a variety of contextual factors. Some days we may be incredibly empathetic, and other days our anxiety might temporarily block our empathy. Our creativity might bloom in some circumstances, and be dampened in others. There is a natural ebb and flow of our personalities and identities, which explains why humans are prone to contradictions and anomalies in our behavior. This isn’t a bad thing. The fact that our brains are constantly changing based on our experiences is part of the richness of the human experience and allows us to continually learn and grow. 

However, platforms like Instagram send us a different message. They tell us that we should always share with our audience in mind. What would they think of this post? Does it align with the messages I’ve been sending thus far? Will they believe me when I tell them who I am? Will they think I’m “acting” a certain way? Will I contradict myself? If we hold ourselves to the societal standard that is presented to us on social media, then authenticity is about consistency, simplicity and perfection. This is in stark contrast to the haphazard and complex way our brain functions. This discrepancy between how we represent our lives online and how we experience them in real life can create feelings of shame and inadequacy. In spite of the comfort that we feel when washing over our images with a reliable filter that blurs our imperfections and keeps our feed as streamlined as possible, the internal disconnect that occurs over time (real me = complicated, Instagram me = simple) becomes increasingly problematic. 

 The reality is, we sacrifice parts of our personality in order to make ourselves appear less complicated. It takes a lot of effort and energy to chip away at our sharper edges and hide our shadows. The overwhelming pressure to conform our real life decisions to fit our online identities, makes us feel more “authentic” but it also has a claustrophobic effect. It encourages obsessive perfectionism and micromanagement, rather than true development and self-acceptance. Perhaps we avoid sharing photos on our Grandma’s old couch, because it doesn’t match the aesthetic of our feed or actively seek out a specific restaurant to eat at so that we can maintain our image as a dedicated foodie. The joy of spontaneity in real life is replaced by a preoccupation with finding the perfect shot, reapplying lipstick and thinking of a clever caption. This is the irony of “fomo” on Instagram. Our fear of missing out online is causing us to actually miss out on our real lives. By creating an ideal self that means more to us than our real identity, we subconsciously make ourselves small. Our conversations may become stale, our interests begin to wither and our natural ability to trust our intuition is replaced with a compulsive need for external validation. 

One of the most important ways to cultivate greater authenticity on Instagram is to commit to making social media an afterthought. Rather than seeking out experiences that will be widely accepted online, we should seek out the things that we feel genuinely drawn to and allow our experiences to inform what we share. Don’t worry about how it fits together. You aren’t your Instagram. Make a habit of asking yourself questions like: If I let go of the imagined audience in my head, what would I post? How am I editing myself and why? Am I prioritizing myself and my interests or how other people will perceive me? It is natural to experience a voice in our minds nudging us to abide by social norms but we don’t have to believe everything we think. By asking ourselves these questions we can foster awareness and override our inclination to self-edit. 

Try as we might to fit into a series of small boxes, people contain multitudes. We live, we breathe, we change our minds. Our worldviews will always be in flux, our faces will age, our careers may change a dozen different times--we are not static beings, and any friction that we experience via social media throughout this natural progression of human life should be put into proper perspective: Instagram lacks the flexibility that our humanity demands. By embracing our complexity and allowing that to be reflected online, we free ourselves to evolve authentically.