Day 22

Social Studies by award-winning filmmaker Lauren Greenfield takes a deep dive into what it’s like to grow up in a world where social media is always on—and always watching. It follows the first generation raised on social media platforms, showing how online life shapes how people see themselves.

The series connects directly to Charles Horton Cooley’s idea of the looking-glass self—basically, the idea that we build our identity based on how we think others see us. According to Cooley, the looking-glass self has three components: 1) Imagining how we appear to others; 2) Imagining how others judge us; and 3) The feelings about ourselves based on those judgments.

In Social Studies, you can see this happening in real time. Likes, comments, and reactions become a kind of “mirror,” reflecting back an image that people use to define who they are. Instead of forming identity on their own, people are constantly reading the room (or their feed) and adjusting—figuring out what gets approval, what doesn’t, and where they fit in.

It’s a reminder that who we are isn’t just something we decide—it’s shaped, filtered, and sometimes distorted by the people (and screens) around us.