Submission 2025
| Submitted by: | Jaron Tan |
| Department: | Psychology |
| Faculty: | Science |
This image aims to capture the psychological toll of social media on adolescent identity development. Adolescence is a critical period of development, characterized by significant physical and psychosocial changes, including the development of the self. During this developmental period, youths start to compare themselves with others and derive self-evaluations from their social and peer experiences. In recent years, social media has become an integral part of our lives. Youths become increasingly dependent on social media and are constantly tied to their phones. As such, youths become more likely to draw similar social comparisons and self-evaluations from social media. Over time, these social media comparisons – often based on curated, idealized portrayals of others – can distort adolescents’ self-identity. They begin to internalize false and possibly harmful impressions of themselves. Ultimately, they start to lose sight of who they really are and become faceless in the midst of the feed. My research, therefore, aims to explore how these subtle but persistent effects of social media contribute to a distorted self-identity and heightened emotional distress in adolescents.
Was your image created using Generative AI?
No.
How was your image created?
To highlight my research on social media and adolescent identity development, I wanted to depict an image of a phone and a white mask – literally tied together. In this case, red threads were sewn in on a white face mask. The other ends of the threads were taped on the screen of a phone, which the subject held in her hands while wearing the mask. The image was then taken with a Nikon D5000 and later edited on Photoshop. The white mask in this image symbolizes a faceless figure that is shaped and obscured by social media over time. Red threads connect the phone to the mask, emphasizing how adolescent’s vision and attention are tethered to their devices. These threads, sewn directly at the eyes of the mask, also distort the subject’s line of sight. This visual narrative reflects how young people may lose sight of their identity by focusing so intensely on social media content. Minimalistic, yet distinct colors (e.g., black, white, red) were chosen for the background, clothing and threads respectively to portray an eerie, almost unsettling atmosphere, and direct the viewer’s focus to the subject and the threads connecting the eyes of the mask to the phone.
Where is the image located?
The image was taken in Malaysia, specifically in a photography studio at Dasein Academy of Art, Kuala Lumpur, where my sister was studying at the time.