Between the mirror and the screen
By Alberto Moreno Gámez · 14 mayo 2026
How digital validation, screens and new kinds of mirrors shape our self-image.
A useful but not definitive diagnosis
In recent years many voices have appeared that tell us, with quite conviction, that something is not quite right. And the truth is that, if we look around, it's hard not to give them any reason: people taking ten photos to choose one, conversations interrupted by notifications, or relationships increasingly mediated by screens.
Authors like Marino Pérez Álvarez have been able to put words to this feeling. They point out that some of these practices (selfis, certain uses of technology, the way we bond with pets or even machines) may be reflecting deeper change: we seek faster, more controllable and sometimes less complicated relationships.
The idea is suggestive. And, in part, surely right. Now, he also has a small problem: when an explanation works well, we tend to use it for everything. And that's where you should lift your foot a little bit. Because psychological life is not so orderly as to fit into a single diagnosis.
Not all selfie is narcissism. Not all technology is isolation. Not every pet replaces a person. Sometimes, they're just... they're different things performing different functions.
In Elemental I propose something similar: that cultural changes are not well understood from extreme positions, but by observing how people incorporate them into their daily lives. And that includes something quite human: doing contradictory things without necessarily meaning that we are lost.
Therefore, rather than quickly deciding that we are going to get worse (or that everything is perfectly well), it may make more sense to adopt a slightly more uncomfortable, but also more realistic position: to recognize that there are important changes... without assuming that we already know exactly what they mean.
The problem isn't selfie... it's the script.
Selfie is not, in itself, the problem. Neither is uploading a photo, taking care of the image or even seeking some approval. That has always existed, only now with better lighting and rather more indulgent filters. The interesting question lies not in the conduct, but in the account we build from it. What story do I tell myself when I expose myself? Who am I when nobody's watching? To what extent does my identity depend on being seen?
A simple example: someone uploads a photo on the beach.
Possibility 1: “I like this moment, I share it.”
Possibility 2: “I need this to confirm that my life is going well.” The behavior is the same. Not the internal script. And that's where the really interesting starts. Because the psychological impact comes not so much from what we do, but from the meaning we give it. It is not the same to express oneself as to hold on. It's not the same sharing as needing to be confirmed. Little by little (and without anyone knowingly deciding) a subtle shift can appear: we stop using the image to show who we are and start using it to build a version of ourselves that needs to be validated. And that introduces a major change, even if everything looks the same.
It's not about dramatizing. It is not that each selfie brings us a little closer to the existential abyss. But it is true that, when identity begins to rely too much on the external gaze, it can become more fragile, more dependent and, in some cases, more aware of how it looks than how it lives. A self that works well... whenever there's an audience.
Identity is not something that we simply “have,” but something that we continually tell ourselves and rebuild. And today that story is built, to a large extent, in contexts of constant exposure, where there's always someone watching... or where we feel there should be.
So, rather than asking ourselves if selfie is good or bad, perhaps the useful question is another:
Is this what I show born of what I am... or what I need to look like?
What we measured... and what we left out
Much of the research on the impact of screens focuses on variables such as anxiety, depression or attention difficulties. And that's fine. It is measurable, clear and fits perfectly into the classic models of mental health. Psychologists are pretty reassured to be able to put numbers on things.
But there's something important that stays out of the frame. We're measuring how people feel, but not what stories are told about their lives. And that's not a minor detail. Because identity does not work as a thermometer that goes up or down, but as a story that is being built. Not only does it matter if I'm anxious, but what that means to me, how I interpret it and what it says about who I am.
So perhaps the question should not be left alone in: Do screens increase anxiety? But expand a little: Are they shaping a kind of identity that is too focused on how others see me? Are we moving from living experiences to managing them as content?
Because there's a subtle difference between remembering a moment and thinking about what that moment will look like when I tell it.
More directly, not only does it matter if we're more nervous, but we're starting to live like there's always a camera on. As if our life were, little by little, a well-edited trailer of ourselves. With his best scenes, his strategic silences... and, of course, without false shots.
The problem is that this format works very well out, but sometimes it leaves little space inside.
Many of the current discomforts are not fully understood if we only measure them in terms of symptoms. We also need to look at the frameworks of meaning in which people build their identity. Because it's not the same feeling bad within a story that makes sense... that within one that constantly depends on how it's going to be seen.
Between autonomy and avoidance
Something similar happens with other contemporary phenomena. The pleasure devices like the satisfiedyers, for example, can be read as a sign of isolation... or as an expression of autonomy. Pets can be an emotional shelter... or a form of genuine bond that does not replace, but accompanies.
And here comes the interesting thing: many times we try to quickly decide what each thing is, as if we had to choose sides. But reality is often far less orderly.
The key, again, is not in the object, but in use. And, above all, in the role it plays.
A satisfiedyer can be: a way to avoid intimacy... or a way to get to know each other better. A pet can be: a substitute relationship or a relationship that regulates emotionally and facilitates other relationships And a robot, if any, may be many things... even though we trust that it will not develop the disturbing ability to tell us “We have to talk...” at the worst possible time.
The problem arises when we try to simplify all this in a single reading. Because then we stopped understanding what's going on and started, rather, judging it. And that, in psychology, is usually a bad strategy.
What we see today are not “good” or “bad” behaviors in themselves, but different ways (sometimes clumsy, sometimes quite ingenious) to respond to real needs: connection, emotional regulation, pleasure, company. It's another matter to do it more or less closely.
In Elemental I think this is precisely the case: that many contemporary behaviors perform legitimate psychological functions, although not always in the best possible way. And that understanding that function is often much more useful than quickly deciding whether we are facing a problem... or a solution.
Neither Catastrophe nor Ingenuity
One of the risks of some critical positions is that, in their attempt to alert them, they end up drawing a picture too uniform and, in my view, excessively apocalyptic. As if we were all moving, quite organized in addition, towards a more superficial version, more isolated and slightly more artificial of ourselves.
The image is powerful... but reality is often much less planned. And also a lot more interesting.
Because people don't use technology passively. We are not obedient users following invisible instructions. On the contrary: we reinterpreted, adapted, mixed and, in many cases, used things in ways that no one had foreseen. If something characterizes us, it is not exactly the perfect coherence.
So, rather than talking about a single clear drift, it might make more sense to talk about tensions. Of unstable balances that we manage as we can: Between exhibition and authenticity. Between connection and dependence. And between autonomy and avoidance.
And the interesting thing is that we don't usually settle at one end or the other, but we move between them according to the moment, the context or, simply, the day we have.
The human being is not defined by choosing correctly between two poles, but by how it is handled within those tensions. Sometimes quite correctly... and other times, let's put it this way, with room for improvement. Therefore, perhaps the error is not to point out the risks (there are), but to assume that we are all caught up in the same process, moving in the same direction and at the same pace. Reality, as almost always, is much more chaotic. And, fortunately, also more flexible.
Looking better
After all this, it may be appropriate to lower the volume of the debate a little. We don't live in a dystopia, even if sometimes it seems so when someone takes 47 photos to choose one. Nor are we in a golden age of lost authenticity, as if before we all lived in a sort of emotional purity without filters or posture.
We are simply in a moment of transition. One of those periods in which the ways to relate, to build identity and to experience the world change. And as usually happens in any transition, there is a little bit of everything: some excess, quite confusion... and also a lot of learning going on.
Perhaps it is not enough to point out behaviors and label them, but we need to understand what role they play, what accounts they hold, and what kind of me they are building. That the problem is not so much in what we do, but in how we integrate it.
So perhaps the key is not to reject these changes or embrace them without more enthusiasm. Neither to be constantly alarmed nor to look the other way. But to develop something rather less striking, but much more useful: psychological criterion.
The one that makes it possible to distinguish when a behavior is helping us... and when it starts to pay us back. That which does not depend so much on what we do, but on what we do it for.
Because in the end, between the mirror and the screen, we're still here. With our contradictions, our needs and our strange ability to complicate the simple.
And that criterion (which is not measured in likes or improved with filters) is probably what we need most.
