Digital Social Comparison and the Formation of Young Adult Self-Concept

Celeste M. Navarro

Digital Social Comparison and the Formation of Young Adult Self-Concept

Author(s)	Dr. Celeste M. Navarro
Country	United States
Abstract	Digital social environments have transformed the conditions under which young adults evaluate personal ability, appearance, lifestyle, relationships, achievement, and social worth. Social comparison is not a new psychological process; however, contemporary social-media platforms have increased the visibility, continuity, quantification, and selectivity of comparison information. Young adults can now evaluate themselves against peers, influencers, professionals, celebrities, and unfamiliar users through feeds dominated by curated images, achievements, opinions, and indicators of social approval. This study examines the relationship between digital social comparison and the formation of young adult self-concept, with particular attention to self-concept clarity, external validation dependence, authentic self-perception, and identity stability. The theoretical model draws on social comparison theory and contemporary scholarship on social-media-based identity development. Existing evidence indicates that upward comparisons may be associated with lower self-esteem and reduced identity clarity, although comparison effects differ according to direction, content, developmental stage, and the psychological processes activated by comparison. Because no original survey dataset was supplied for this manuscript, the analytical component uses a simulated cross-sectional dataset of 540 hypothetical young adults aged 18–29 years solely to demonstrate the proposed research design. Participants are conceptually classified into low, moderate, and high digital-social-comparison groups. The illustrative results show a progressive decrease in the Self-Concept Clarity Index from 78.4 in the low-comparison group to 65.9 in the moderate group and 52.6 in the high-comparison group. Higher comparison intensity is also accompanied by greater simulated dependence on external approval and lower authentic self-alignment. The study argues that the psychological consequences of social media depend less on exposure time alone than on how individuals interpret, compare, present, and validate themselves within digital environments. The proposed framework offers a basis for future longitudinal and survey-based research and suggests that digital-literacy interventions should incorporate comparison awareness, authenticity, reflective platform use, and resilience against externally quantified self-worth.
Keywords	digital social comparison; self-concept; self-concept clarity; young adults; social media; identity formation; upward comparison; self-esteem; external validation; digital identity
Field	Engineering
Published In	Volume 1, Issue 4, July-August 2020
Published On	2020-07-15

View / Download PDF File

About AJAMIR Fees & Payment Current Issue Publication Archive	Submit Research Paper Track Submission Status Publication Guidelines Publication Ethics Peer Review & Plagiarism	Join as a Reviewer Editors & Reviewers Reviewer Referral Program Get Reviewer Membership Certi.	Website/Journal Policies Usage Policy Content Policies Privacy Policy

Contact Us		+1-872-302-3851	editor@ajamir.com

American Journal of Advanced Multidisciplinary Innovation and Research

A Widely Indexed Open Access Peer Reviewed Multidisciplinary Bi-monthly Scholarly International Journal

Digital Social Comparison and the Formation of Young Adult Self-Concept

Share this