The Curated Self: Social Media, Photography, and the Psychology of Digital Identity

As many research programmes begin, this book started with a puzzle that traditional frameworks did not seem able to solve. As we conducted the first study a survey of social media posting behaviour among adults in Nepal  we noticed strongly that there was an inconsistency between qualitative and quantitative data, which put both types of data at odds with each other. Those who provided richly detailed narratives about labor-intensive curation scrolling through hundreds of photographs, spot-editing and re-editing, timing posts for optimum engagement rarely spoke with pride: the tone was often an anxious ambivalence. Their constructed self was real, and not: an idealised projection attracting social approval but also a kind of nagging sickness about which they were unable to come clean.

We labelled this discomfort as the Curation-Authenticity Tension, and it became the guiding question of our entire research programme: what does it do to an individual when how they present themselves in front of others appears to systematically differ from their private person? As it turns out, this question has empirically tractable answers. The divergence which we went on to operationalise as Digital Identity Dissonance is quantifiable, systematic across individuals and time, and predictive of important variations in psychological well-being. We gradually constructed upon this initial mystery over four interrelated studies and the span of several years of collaborative work. The second study found that the phenomenon is not monolithic: as individuals relate to their curated digital selves in qualitatively different ways, these differences anticipate significantly different psychological developments over time.

The third study found that individual dispositions do not act independently they interact with algorithmic systems and these systems actively work to build content environments through which users encounter their very sense of self. The final study showed that once these dynamics are cleared and understood, they may be interrupted by strategic action at the individual, clinical and platform levels. This book brings together the results from all four studies into one cohesive story that is directed towards researchers, clinicians, educators, platform designers, and policymakers trying to navigate the effects of visual social media on mental health. Each chapter builds on the published journal papers but does provide considerably more extended theoretical discussion, methodological detail and practical implication than can be afforded within journal word limits. We hope the volume contributes to making this conversation about social media, identity and mental health one that ironically is now belatedly persisting but more than ever deserving scientific and policy attention.