There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self.

Benjamin Franklin

The "looking-glass self" is a concept that explains how individuals form their sense of self based on their perception of how others see them.  Social media is now the penultimate illustration of how the perception of self has become   about what others perceive us to be. 

Selfies are not really taken for the self but for prime texting material to impress others.  Memory hoarding photos are not for self-consumption but rather to promulgate to others. 

Is how we see ourselves about other people’s perception of who we are, or is it about how we see ourselves?  When we are so dependent on other people’s opinions of who we are, how does this connect to “self” esteem?  What happens to the “self” when it is not derived from one’s self?  

Foreign Films
When we watch a foreign film, we are getting a portrayal of the identity of that foreign culture.  The film, via its writers and director, depict what it is like to be Greek, Italian, or French.  The films are about sharing a cultural identity with the world.  The world does not tell us what it is like to be Greek, the Greek film tells us.  This view of the culture is from the inside-out not the outside-in.  No country would be satisfied with basing their identity on how other countries see them.  The “looking glass self” does not apply to nations.  Why should it apply to individuals?

Codependency
Have humans become codependent on the approval of others to be okay with who they are?  Codependency refers to a relationship pattern where one person prioritizes the needs of another to the point of sacrificing their own, often resulting in a dysfunctional dynamic.  This dysfunction can manifest in myriad permutations.  Depression, anxiety and suicide are on the rise.   

Dysfunction on the Rise
“In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 13.2 million people thought seriously about suicide in 2022. Between 2000 and 2022, suicide rates have increased by 36% ⁽¹⁾.”

“The percentage of U.S. adults who report having been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lifetime has reached 29.0%, nearly 10 percentage points higher than in 2015. The percentage of Americans who currently have or are being treated for depression has also increased, to 17.8%, up about seven points over the same period. Both rates are the highest recorded by Gallup since it began measuring depression using the current form of data collection in 2015 ⁽²⁾.”

 “The 2024 results of the American Psychiatric Association’s annual mental health poll show that U.S. adults are feeling increasingly anxious. In 2024, 43% of adults say they feel more anxious than they did the previous year, up from 37% in 2023 and 32% in 2022 ⁽³⁾.” 

The Lost Self
The dissonance created by the gap between the “looking glass self” and our perceived self leads to the loss of self.  We are now unable to evaluate who we are or how we see ourselves without the corroboration of others.  Social media is becoming the benchmark for identity determination for many.  These platforms are not a stable reference point to view our self, which promotes instability in our view of self.

Implications
One possible implication of the “looking glass self” is that we lose the power of self-determination.  We are giving away our power to others by allowing other’s perceptions of who we are to affect our perception of who we are.

Once our perception of self is altered by others, our self-confidence will also be altered.  Self-doubt is not far behind our loss of confidence.  Self-esteem has also been depleted.

The loss of self-confidence and self-esteem with self-doubt opens the door to feelings of helplessness.  Our dependence on the approval from others has diminished our personal agency, which we rely on to function at full capacity.  Personal agency refers to “the sense that I am the one who is causing or generating an action” (Gallagher 2000, p. 15). A person with a sense of personal agency perceives himself/herself as the subject influencing his/her own actions and life circumstances (Bandura 2006 ⁽⁴⁾; Gallagher 2000 ⁽⁵⁾).

Now that our personal capacity and personal agency have been compromised, our vulnerability to depression and anxiety has increased.  The longer we stay in this vulnerability the greater the risk.  Increased rates of dysfunction are not just about what is going on in the world, the outside-in component.  A far greater impact may be our perceptual robustness, the inside-out component.  Our internal strength of identity may be the most important ingredient to a successful recipe of self.   

References

^{1- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) (2022).}

^{2- Witters, D. (2023). U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs. Wellbeing, May 17, 2023.}

^{3- American Psychiatric Association. American Adults Express Increasing Anxiousness in Annual Poll; Stress and Sleep are Key Factors Impacting Mental Health.  May 01, 2024}

^{4- Bandura, A. (2006). Toward a Psychology of Human Agency. Perspectives on Psychological Science, Vol. 1, Issue 2, Sage Journals.}

^{5- Gallagher, S. (2000). Philosophical Conceptions of the Self: Implications for Cognitive Science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 4(1): 14-21.}