In creating their site “profile”, the young inevitably aim for maximum appeal, self-advertisement. They are under great pressure to be “marketing characters” (as the social psychologist Erich Fromm put it), seeing themselves and others as commodities. Using personality and looks, they aim to increase their value and to raise it by association with other high-value commodity-persons. There are high- and low-status networks to be linked into, creating winners and losers.
Oliver James, here.
