True Self and Social Media

This week's Voicethread had a slide that discussed how we adjust what we post based on who we think is reading (Context Conflict).  This really reminded me of something I deal with in others.

I am a teacher and small group leader in a ministry program called Living Waters where we help people deal with relational brokenness through Christ-centered teaching, ministry, and prayer.  The program is broken down into 20 teaching subjects and four of them deal with the True Self.  
Obviously this is a key teaching in trying to heal people from their brokenness that manifests as additions, abuse, self-loathing, narcissism, and repeated relationship failures.  We work carefully with participants to allow them to safely let go of the false fronts they put up and be honest with themselves and those they love.  It is summed up in the four sections:

• True Self Forgives
• True Self Aspires to Wholeness, Refuses Dispair
• True Self Unites with God - Overcomes Narcissism
• True Self Loves the Existing Self

Not being yourself on social media seemed to resonate with many of my classmates; it seemed like we are all doing that.  If we cannot be ourselves on on our own social media, is that healthy?  The answer to that is probably dependent how much of our self-worth is linked to our social media.  People that are casual social media users will likely not be impacted by this, as their projected false self is more of an effort to maintain civility and simply avoid conflict. 

For the person that is constantly counting contacts or friends, watching likes, and always hoping something they post will go viral, the false self they project on line will likely be damaging to their ability to maintain good healthy relationships with those around them, be they physical or virtual.  Taking some of the wording from the points above, the virtual life becomes a half life (not whole), self-absorbed (narcissistic), and consumed with trying to be someone they are not. 

If the self you project on social media becomes too different from your true self, it may be time to terminate your relationship with that social media persona and return to the real world.