“our face is usually only one part of our sense of self and, now, it’s the only part,” explains catherine sabiston, a professor and canada research chair in physical activity and mental health at the university of toronto. “there is a lot of emphasis on our face throughout the day now … your face is front and centre on your screen and the screens of all the other meeting attendees, with a potential constant feeling that people can and may be judging us.”
i’ve got my eye on … me
we’re not used to being able to essentially watch ourselves while engaging in conversation. that leads to an inevitable analysis of not only our skin and possible wrinkles, but also our facial expressions, with little option of turning it all off — depending on your boss, that is. in that sense, says sabiston, zoom functions much like “an all-day mirrored room, and mirrors have a long history of perpetuating negative emotions and perceptions of ourselves.”
it sounds like a nightmare of a fun house. but since birth, we’ve had
a complicated history with mirrors
. according to a 2019 article in the
frontiers in psychology
journal, self-consciousness can be defined as our awareness of our body, and exists in the intersection between psychiatry, philosophy and neurophysiology. so what we see in the mirror, and how we process that image, has a profound impact on how we see and understand our self-image. and that itself is based on a long list of things, from our history with people, our body and our experiences, to how we feel about our work, our identity, our sexuality — even what we watched on netflix last night.
5 minute read
