Lose yourself with Facebook?

If I were asked to define a Facebook profile, I’d probably ramble on about it being a space for articulating one’s identity, albeit often at a superficial level, to either a network of “friends” or the world at large in the case of a public profile. I certainly wouldn’t have described it as an arena in which I become disconnected from myself, posing a threat to my mental health! Yet, this is precisely what US psychologist Leonard Sax argues in his latest book, Girls On The Edge, which identifies social networking sites and other electronic communication technologies as one of four factors fuelling crises of identity among teenage girls.


Obsessively updating their Facebook profiles, statuses and photos late into the night, he contends that large numbers of girls inhabit a “cyberbubble” where they are constantly connected to one another at the ultimate cost of failing to internally develop a stable sense of self. The thirst for external validation becomes all the more central, as social networking sites facilitate immediate feedback to the persona that is being portrayed and unrelentingly honed in a way that is typically not true to who the girl really is, something she herself has lost sight of.

Of course, such an argument assumes that we have an innate sense of identity in the first place from which we can become disconnected. In opposition to this, sociologists such as Erving Goffman and Judith Butler have compellingly argued that identity is always something which we perform; that it is socially constructed rather than an essence we are born with. Certainly, in my opinion, social networking sites have merely provided a new stage for the performance of identity which has always taken place, rather than constituting a holistically new mode of self expression with a new range of associated pitfalls. For example, in order to promote the 'right' image of ourselves as up-to-date or on trend, we may pursue fashion fads that are not necessarily a reflection of our "genuine" or "authentic" selves, if such selves even exist. Does such behaviour not predate that to which Sax is referring?

Also worthy of note is his assertion that the “cyberbubble” is only a problem for girls, as boys are exceedingly more likely to be passionate about first person shooter games than Facebook. To what do we owe this difference? In an interview regarding his earlier book Why Gender Matters, Sax contends that boys and girls are “hardwired” very differently to each other. He refers to a study where female new-born babies look at a woman while male babies have their attention drawn to a hanging mobile when both are placed at either side of their crib, concluding that girls are interested in human faces while boys seek movement or action. In this sense, boys spend their childhood exploring while girls enjoy tea parties (and are later drawn to video games and Facebook respectively), not because of social conditioning, but because of differences present from the first day of life. Sorry Bertozzi, but your policy recommendations for getting females into gaming are apparently in vain. See the anti-essentialists cringe!

His support for biological determinism aside, Sax does make some valid points regarding how parents should limit the time their daughters spend occupying the “cyberbubble” (no mobile phones at the dinner table, for example). Unfortunately, it is all too tempting to make bold, sweeping claims about new technologies that ignore pre-existing trends in social behaviour. But of course, scaremongering always has been an effective way to sell a book.