Abstract
Unlike most social media, the new platform BeReal encourages users to present an authentic self. Since such self-presentations are assumed to have positive effects, this study examined whether adolescents’ authentic self-presentations on BeReal relate to a higher self-esteem and whether self-concept clarity plays a role in that relationship. The relationships between exposure to perceived authentic self-presentations of others, social comparison on BeReal, and self-esteem were also explored. Of the 367 adolescents who participated in our cross-sectional survey, a total of 148 (40.33%, Mage = 16.23, SDage = 1.46; 82.4% girls) had an account on BeReal. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), we found that these adolescents’ authentic self-presentations were not significantly related to their self-concept clarity nor indirectly to their self-esteem. Self-esteem and self-concept clarity were, however, positively correlated. Regarding exposure to others’ content on BeReal, only upward and lateral social comparisons on these platforms were significantly related to a lower and higher self-esteem, respectively.
Keywords
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
