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Who people think we are is who we are because identity is a reflection..

That assumes a level of honesty that is missing from social media. On Instagram people explicitly pretend to be someone they are not. The reflection they show is beauty and affluence but the reality is Photoshop and prestige car rental.

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Insta is like a computer role playing game, where the player usually plays a character that closely resembles themselves, but often as a more idealized version.

When my daughter started playing Hogwarth's legacy, she instantly created a charcter that looked as much as possible like her. Instagram is not that different.

It would be fascinating to take a sample of people, compare their avatars to their real life appearance, and then have them spend an hour talking to a shrink about why they are so similar/different.

Anecdotally, I know many people in both the very similar and very different camps, and a few who are very similar except for some small thing.

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