It’s all about our selfies.
You may think we’re talking about our smartphone cameras, but we’re actually more concerned with discussing how we understand and feel about ourselves. We’ve enlisted the help of Dr. Ellen Slicker for this discussion, professor of professional counseling at Middle Tennessee State University and private-practice psychologist. She has shared some of her research, citing Dr. David Elkind, psychologist and educator, in his book, “Egocentrism in Adolescence.”
To begin with, we know that the teen years are especially fraught with over-sensitivity and self-consciousness. These are awkward years when most kids desperately want to belong, to be liked and to be noticed. They also do not want to be singled out, stared at or even be visible. Hardly makes any sense, does it? They want their cake … and not eat it, too. The term “awkward years” seems highly appropriate.
Sometimes we talk about our “self-concept.” Slicker says this is the combination of self-understanding and self-esteem, additional terms with which we are familiar. “Self-understanding” means how we think about ourselves and “self-esteem” is how we feel about ourselves. The latter phrase has more to do with how we evaluate and/or measure ourselves.
“In adolescence, self-understanding becomes abstract and idealistic,” Slicker explains. An adolescent might describe himself as trustworthy or loyal, and those descriptions may also include other people’s opinions of them, she says.