IDENTITY AND AUTHENTICITY 

Many older folks seem inclined to offer advice to adolescents and younger adults. Although we might have the best intentions, its effect on their decisions and actions can often seem very limited. I know that I spent a lot of time over decades as a professor in business ethics and organization behavior classes raising social and moral issues, discussing actual cases, and trying to explore potential decision options. I’ll never really know the limited extent to which my efforts had an impact. 

It seems to me that there are tougher threats now for those completing their education and entering public and private sector jobs. Getting a decent job can be one big challenge. Also, many organizations have taxing or toxic work cultures that can overwhelm or frustrate younger employees. Some employees exit these kinds of organizations and jobs soon, or they become what’s been recently called “quiet quitters.”

Young employees often come into these work organizations from supportive family and friendship backgrounds. They can have high expectations for continuing encouragement and accomplishment in their new jobs. However, some new employees will not meet many of their high expectations due to possible personal or organizational factors. This can trigger defensive personal reactions tied to an underlying loss of part of their preferred self-identity and self-worth.

This loss of a preferred identity as a “winner” and feelings of lessened self-worth can have physical, mental and emotional consequences for employees, such as their heightened anxiety or depression. Another defensive response from some employees trying desperately to achieve their hopes or expectations as winners is their acting unethically or illegally to try to get ahead in the eyes of others.  

These potential “snares” for some employees entering work organizations have long existed. What has become more disturbing related to Increasing loss of authentic self-identity is that more adolescents or teenagers are also falling prey. These threats and problems are often linked to heavier than average reliance on various social media channels.     

Social scientists use terms such as self-presentation, impression management, and naïve marketing to describe common human tendencies to create a favorable image of ourselves to others.  We want others to respect us and be disposed to treat us well. So, we try to some extent to manage the impression that others have of us. Being socially accepted and supported by others is particularly important for adolescents who may be stepping away for the first time from their family/friendship cultures.  

Actual physical encounters with others can sometimes be threatening or at least unsettling. We cannot always look good, think fast, and respond accordingly to manage these impressions successfully. Social media can allow us time and opportunity to compose and then distribute our desired impressions.  

Recent research shows a significant shift in how the "social media generation" views itself.  A growing body of evidence, including a major April 2025 Pew Research Center report, highlights a deepening crisis in self-identity and self-worth. ​According to the Pew 2025 report, 48% of teens believe social media has a "mostly negative" impact on people their age, up from 32% in 2022.

Related conclusions come from the Child Mind Institute, an organization dedicated to transforming the lives of children and families struggling with mental health and learning disorders. The institution’s research findings concerning social media suggest to me that the more time youth spend "pruning" their online identities to look “good,” the more they struggle with their authentic self-worth. The moods and personal identity of youth can become tethered to "likes," views, and digital feedback rather than more solid accomplishments.

One problem with a lot of social media consumption is the continuing feedback loops affecting self-identity. This can encourage an overly "performance-based" identity where young people feel they are always being watched and judged, making it difficult to develop a more stable, mature sense of self. A few years of aging and then entry into corporate or public sector jobs can sometimes accelerate this tendency for overly appearance-based identity formation.

Shakespeare wrote that the world is a stage and we’re all actors. That’s true to some varying extent for all of us. But can we reach a critical point when so many younger and older folks are “marketing” themselves to others to get favorable responses that we become a world more and more of deceptions, illusions, and uncertainties?

Our occasional escape from the “stage” to the great outdoors can be a purer identity grounding and healing opportunity. Perhaps publications such as PWJ that offer many narratives about personal encounters with our natural environment can be a valuable counterpoint, too. They can remind us from time to time of richer and more authentic personal learning. I just wish that there were fewer slick marketing schemes by manipulative “influencers” and more effective communication channels through which young people could discover more authentic personal identities.