Self-Esteem in the Digital Age

I’m nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody too?

Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!

They’d banish us, you know.

So begins an eight-line poem by Emily Dickinson. Written in 1861 and published posthumously in 1890, the work spent decades in a drawer, along with 800 other writings.

Previous generations memorized the poem in school. Reclusive herself, Dickinson seems to be sharing a secret with an equally solitary, anonymous reader: She tells them she is different from other people. She is content to live quietly, in company with her thoughts — and with a small set of like-minded others. She has no wish for fame.

We remember the poet today as an advocate of the quiet life, centered on the simple pleasures of house and garden, intellectual curiosity, attunement to nature, and the rituals of ordinariness. To her, being pensive, even melancholy, was no sin.

Rethinking self-esteem

Every reader takes from a writer the lessons they want to learn. We moderns think of Dickinson as a person of quiet resolve who knew who she was and what she wanted to do. Against the clamor of the crowd, she accepted the fact of her differentness. When most women of her time were drawn into obligations of marriage and motherhood, she pursued self-reliance.

So inspired, we tell ourselves: Live your own way. Follow your passions, even if their products must be stored in a drawer.

Psychological advice regarding self-esteem usually adheres to these guidelines. To feel good about one’s identity in the world, people should be assertive. They should set boundaries, voice needs and opinions, and not back down from conflict. Don’t try to people-please, but do accept feedback from others. Commit to promises you’ve made to yourself.

Such advice is mostly about self-management. That is, it encourages people to stay in charge of their own life-course. Such is the way — at least in societies with an individualist ethic — for people to appreciate their self-worth.

There’s value in this philosophy. However, I’ll emphasize here a quite different perspective. Self-esteem — essentially, affirming who you are, have been, and hope to be — depends on the quality of your connections to the world. Personal worth is less a list of accomplishments than it is a history of relationships and commitments.

Because our contemporary or digital age dramatically changes the scale of those relationships, let’s consider below four types of commitments.

Relationships with other people

Dickinson eschewed the noisy clamor of the crowd, that public who wants to know only about extreme behaviors and cares nothing for the persons behind the caricatures. However, she was deeply committed to her small set of social contacts, some of whom she knew only through letters.

Wouldn’t most of us agree? We depend on certain people that are the foundation of our identities. Our spirits rise when “significant others” — family, friends, and coworkers — approve and comfort us. We are lessened when they rebuke us. More profoundly, our sense of well-being is a collective affair. The happiness of treasured companions brings us happiness; their sadness transcends our own miseries.

I’m not suggesting here we return to a long-ago age when people were defined by their social connections — community, family, class, and ethnicity. However, I think it’s equally inappropriate to think of self-esteem as some individual quality that depends on what we say and do. Self-congratulation is no substitute for the kindly concern of others.

Connections to culture

Increasingly today people put versions of themselves into a public domain that is mediated rather than face-to-face. According to most accounts, more than 5 billion people use social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok. More than 300 million in the US do so. Essentially, that means producing and sharing information — ideas and images — that represent your activities, perspectives, and interests.

Blogs represent a special type of this activity. There are more than 600 million blogs worldwide, with the majority of these appearing on Tumblr. There are 7.5 million posts each day, with an average length of 1400 words.

I participate in that “productive” vision of self. But most of us know that citations, “likes,” and other positive reviews have little to do with the core of our being. To be sure, we should be involved in public culture. What that means, though, is considering matters that affect everyone’s lives rather than seeking recognition for our reactions to it.

Self-Esteem Essential Reads

Letting Go of the Chase and Reclaiming Your Self-Worth

Stop Putting Yourself Down

Like Dickinson then, we should think of culture as a chance to encounter some of people’s deeper reflections. Reading “serious” books, pursuing a challenging craft or art-form, learning a new language, or traveling to a distant land are worthy contributors to self-esteem.

Encounters with nature

Although I’ve emphasized above the confirmations of other people, those aren’t the only sources of confirmation. We are physical creatures who draw sustenance from the natural world. Our happiness depends on those conditions.

During Dickinson’s youth, transcendental philosophy gained a certain popularity in New England. Transcendentalists, like Emerson and Thoreau, argued that people should turn to nature for a sense of the divinity underlying all life and for a better awareness of their own powers and limitations. Insights gained from a walk in the woods are more valuable than an hour spent studying the classics.

We moderns may not have a name for our beliefs, but most of us appreciate the beauty and power of untrammeled nature. As we huff and puff along some trail or just sit quietly on a riverbank, we sense our precarious standing as physical creatures in a universe beyond our imagination.

We’ve been taught to think of nature as something we control, perhaps mining it for its resources or fencing it as “property.” We’re told the size of those holdings contributes to self-esteem. A much better model is to think about that relationship as one of co-dependency, mutual support, or stewardship. We feel better about ourselves when we contribute to the welfare of those uncountable species of plants and animals whose existence is as legitimate as our own.

Treasures of mind and spirit

The great psychologist William James argued that the most fundamental part of personal existence is what he called the “spiritual self,” our sense that there is something within us that allows us to think, feel, and otherwise orient ourselves to the world. Losing that ability to comprehend and manage our behaviors is perhaps our greatest fear.

However, the mind is more than a computer or performance engine for us to master. It is the vantage point from which we survey our life circumstances. It is the reservoir of who we have been and the spillway of our possibilities. For profoundly spiritual people, it is the portal to the turnings of the universe.

To say this is just to encourage readers to find some comfort in the quality of awareness our species has been granted. Take pride in the lessons you’ve learned from others but also appreciate your own insights. Respect and nurture your mind much as you tend the other parts of your body. Be grateful for each fleeting moment.

As Dickinson stressed, the plaudits of the “crowd” have little value. The better source of wisdom — and of self-esteem — is appreciating our connections to those worldly resources that support and sustain us. Most of those connections involve familiar faces, intimate settings, and ordinary routines.