Psychological Needs and Identity Development in the Creation of Virtual Self among Adolescents

The growing presence of digital technologies in the daily lives of adolescents has had a considerable impact on the changes in adolescent development, especially the building of identity in the virtual world. The current paper explores psychological needs behind the existence of a virtual self among adolescents and the implication of the same to identity development. As the adolescents are at an important developmental phase, they are busy on virtual platforms communicating, trying to validate them, and experimenting with various aspects of identity. The study used a descriptive research design. The sample was a sample of 30 adolescents between the age of 13 and 19 years, picked by the use of random sampling. A structured questionnaire was used to collect data in terms of psychological needs including autonomy, relatedness, competence, and validation. Data was interpreted through percentages analysis to determine the trends that prevail in the process of the virtual self-construction of adolescents. The results show that teenagers mostly form virtual personalities in order to satisfy the desire to be socialized and accepted. The necessity to be validated with likes and comments and be recognized by peers became one of the strong motivating elements. Furthermore, the findings also reveal that a significant proportion of adolescents are inclined to impress online which is a disproportion between their real and online identities. The paper is concluding that although virtual self-creation is a good platform to explore the identity and communicate the self to others, it is also a challenge to the process of developing an authentic and consistent self-concept. Hence, educational and psychological interventions that facilitate awareness of the digital, self-reflection, and moderate use of virtual space are required to ensure the healthy development of adolescents.