Between Pixels and Skin: The Construction of Adolescent Identity at the Intertwining of the Real and Digital Worlds

Abstract

“The world will ask you who you are, and if you don't know, the world will tell you.”

Carl Gustav Jung

The topic of the massive diffusion of social media and its immersive use, monopolizing the attention of the so-called "Generation Z" [1], has been studied and examined in various fields. There is no doubt that this use has a direct and almost immediate impact on the socialization processes of those who spend most of their time in cyberspace, losing not only the ability to develop personally in the real world but also the opportunity to acquire those concrete interaction skills that enable effective communication. Identity is formed and emerges within the social context and represents the distillation of psychological, cultural, experiential, and emotional characteristics combined with the self-image one has [2]. The background, the context, within which the process of individuation currently unfolds [3] is not so much represented by the concrete social environment but by an immaterial, intangible environment, in which the opportunity for the body's existence (one's own and that of others) is completely absent. In this environment, the possibility of accessing virtually unlimited information, constantly available content of various kinds facilitated by the spread of wireless networks that allow online access practically everywhere, determines the occurrence of developmental conditions that are completely different from those previously experienced and which are subject to the influence of the Internet on the psyche, on physical well-being and on the vision of the world and of oneself [4].

The occurrence of these "new" existential conditions, constantly new because they are rapidly changing, highlights the need for increasingly in-depth reflection, on the part of clinicians who deal with adolescence, on the emergence of a different type of identity: virtual identity. It is a type of identity profoundly shaped by the "needs" of being constantly connected: the speed of interactions, the constant availability of contact, and the density of the flow of information conveyed determine the need for almost constant levels of online "presence" for fear of missing out on opportunities that could later prove "vital." This inevitably leads to increased fatigue and irritability, driven by an extreme sensitivity to stimuli considered distracting, towards which this generation sometimes engages in very violent behavior.

The virtual world is an immersive world, and social media are experienced as true spaces for self-presentation; contexts within which, through an avatar or nickname, conversations are structured, roles are defined, and conflicts are experienced. Within these contexts, the generation thus acquires those essential skills for interpersonal interaction and for the knowledge, development, and assimilation of parts of the self that are the basis of the identification process [5]. This also leads to behaviors that cannot be adopted in the real world: the virtual context offers the possibility of experiencing a sort of "protection" thanks to the lack of physical presence (although a presence is guaranteed by the nickname) and at the same time virtual contact can be deliberately interrupted simply by turning off the device being used. This leads young people to experience the freedom of being able to indulge in even rather violent forms of language and therefore generate forms of disinhibition that are not otherwise possible, leading to the perception of an unfounded sense of personal greatness. The identity constructed through and in the virtual world has ideal characteristics, facilitated by the pre-packaged materials that the world itself offers: it is called "repost identity" [6] and is made up of pre-existing and formal contents that are completely devoid of uniqueness. The widespread use of prepackaged materials for various purposes—see also the increasingly widespread use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in place of autonomous thought—leads to the risk, in young minds and developing identities, of losing the natural propensity for self-determination as well as the assimilation of programmed and stereotyped solution models, impairing the capacity for creative and original adaptation. This inevitably leads clinicians to reflect on the question of the future ability of new and very new generations to respond and adapt to real-life conditions, whose laws are completely different from those of virtual space, and in what directions psychological support intervention must necessarily move to address the challenges and complex questions that increasingly adolescents of the new generations are facing.