Being Beyond the Reality Principle Through Production and Consumption of the Self in the Digital Realm. About the Digital Created Self in the Shared Personal Life Online. Being Distantly Social and Distantly Present

Taking posting of personal events in pictures and text on Facebook as an example, the article discusses some mechanisms of production of the Self in a new form. Using the process of creating a constructed identity on a social media platform, the paper combines Jacques Lacan, Carl Rogers and Karen Horney in explaining psycho-socially how and why people create an imaginative version of themselves online. This digital version of their Self lives beyond the reality principle. The Self is produced in the digital according to specific needs and drives of its owner. The Other(s) (the audience) that consumes it, bring values and sense of worth by consuming it. The main claim the article makes is that as a result of the communication between the Self and its audience (the Other (s) in the digital), personal values about self-worth change. As a result, self-identification with the consuming audience leads to self-actualizing and glorifying. This sets up the process of creating an Ideal Image based on chosen and hidden content. By doing this, the Ego, led by the Ideal, uses the views from the Imaginary that applies in the digital (the Symbolic order) to reproduce and keep personal narrative of identity going. Hence, an Ideal image is produced. Once produced, it starts to be consumed by the Others from distance that creates the illusion of fulfilment, even constructed in parts. The last few years Facebook has become an area of creating digital Selves that are produced in parts, reproduced (with added in pieces) content and consumed by a chosen audience.


Introduction to the Digital Self
The digital space has recently become the area of being. In all aspects of life, the digital realm has provided opportunities for expression of different behaviour at personal and collective level. However, there are some practices that deserve more attention as they construct a new connection between the people and the world. These practices make human Selves objects of their own desires and searches for self-values. Selves start to reproduce in a digitally shared image. On Facebook, for example, this production of an image is based on self-representation which "strategically construct online personas that emphasize their most desirable traits" (Vogel, Rose, Roberts, & Eckles, 2014). This occurs consistently in a few steps that follow one set of order, which is discussed in this article.
The purpose of posting pictures displaying personal life events (such as giving birth, marriage, visiting a place, loss of a beloved one, having a new job and many more) is no longer informing. This has become a trend that puts a question about the reasons why people have a need to share their personal life events publicly and how emotionally authentic these events and people are.
However, simple sharing goes beyond reality because in the digital-it provokes series of happenings. The text (about any personal event) posted starts receiving comments, GIFs and other emoticons. It narrates a life event. It constructs the way of how a person wants to be seen through the presence of the Other(s). It becomes a conscious process with unconscious routes, from which self-satisfaction and self-recognition are gained. This gain produces pleasure. So, it becomes a mental process that develops a "tendency towards the pleasure principle" (Freud, 2015), but with repetition of posting, the pleasure principle becomes influenced by the conscious, so that the action in the digital overcomes "the reality principle" and becomes a "perception of pleasure" by "unsatisfied instincts" (Freud, 2015). Human Ego does not try to block these instincts. Instead, it responds to them by serving the urge for gratification with the support of the imaginary that works through the fantasy.
Yet, in order to maintain reality, the Self enters the digital realm where it starts to live another life-the life of the self-constructed and self-represented chosen image. The activity of posting pictures as self-representing becomes a reaction from instinctive demands within the mind that may be placed in a conflict by any external or internal processes (in a conflict with 'Who I am really'). As these instincts are not easily controlled (and when also combined with the urge of gratification), they often rise above the reality principles. Then the reaction becomes a mental activity-activity that happens in the mind, but it takes place in a form of a personal post in the digital space, based on person's needs. At the end, the Self creates its digital version.
This article explores the instruments and internal reasons of the creation of identity in the digital reality. The article claims that this identity has its own life in a different realm, but aims to serve the needs of the real Self. It explains the produced, narrated, re-produced and consumed version online that make people distantly social in a imaginative world of always present Selves.
The article contributes to existing literature on the digital and fills the gap of explanations about the psychological motives and social mechanisms that help people to find their new Self (identity) online. The work also provides an example of a link between the phyche and the social environment that adds to the understanding of the influence of the social media.

Construction and Production of the Self in the Digital
As the social media offers space for production of knowledge, stories, news, people, histories, the Self starts to be produced by using a "mnemonic function". Mnemonics are in forms of images, short factual text, songs, rhymes, poems, phrases, numbers, sentences, or the combination of all/some of them in a post (Artamonov, Volovikova, & Tikhonova, 2019). The tool kit of mnemonics is used cognitively for memorising. Combining a text with an image creates a new mental representation. Every individual can form its representation using chosen visual images. The Facebook profile picture is an example. It has meaning and an aim for the owner. It could be only one picture of a personal life event, but it is self-produced. As well as any text. Users of Facebook can choose who can see the posts and the information shared. Therefore, the process of construction becomes entirely personalized. Construction is made of bits and pieces, with the use of combining digital tools where language is a narrated self-expression of emotions. It is produced in parts-posts and statuses. Both become an "authentic source of self-expression" (Chung & Kramer, 2011).
As the person choses how to construct his representation, this becomes a mental image that may be a response of an "inner dictate" that comes from his Self. The Self is the cognitive representation of own identity. It can be seen in a digital version as this article explains. The Ideal Self, in Lacanian meaning, comes from childhood as a sense of wholeness that creates an Ideal image of him, which does not correspond with the physical reality. Lacan things this version is not attainable. That is why this article states that by entering the digital world, humans attempt to create this version through imagination and fantasy with the means of the Ego.
Ego may aim to go "into a being of absolute perfection", but this is formed and personalized in the way how it is desired to be. Therefore, the Self produces its version in order to "fulfil his idealized image of himself and satisfy his pride in the exalted attributes which (so he feels) he has, could have, should have" (Horney, 1991), where the moments of "could" and "should" put the foundation of the self-production. This happens through the omnipresent form of imagination that takes the process of creation beyond the reality principle, even though the production contains the happenings from the everyday life. This enters the imaginary realm with reflections of life event from the physical. And the creation of Self can give a "feeling of identity" of the Ideal. Once it starts to be produced, through postings, it becomes consumed by comments from the chosen audience. And once this By crossing the borders between physical and digital through posting pictures from a chosen life event (such as becoming a parent, a party, a visit, a graduation, etc.), identity starts to be narrated. The Self reaffirms its constructed version through statuses, life happenings, responding to others, getting a part in discussions, being a member of online groups, and following certain pages of interest, etc. The more is the production, the more is the consumption. Within time, through producing and re-producing of this version, the Self increases its power, and it may become "unlimited, with exalted faculties". Hence, it goes beyond the real and becomes "a hero, a genius, a supreme lover" (Horney, 1991). It can achieve multiple "successes". For example, becoming a professional (coach, therapist, influencer, blogger, etc.), a valued citizen, a good parent, a beloved individual, etc. These are created sides that can construct a happy digital being that exist firstly in its own perception of happiness and secondly-in the space where it can be created and proved by Other(s).
According to Karen Horney, "the idealized image becomes an idealized self" (Horney, 1991). The way of becoming is through the idea of how the others see the Self in the particular social (digital) setting. As Facebook is the most common "book" of created "faces", through the status update, language expression and event share have become cues of psychological state of being. They reassure, reproduce, and reaffirm. The image has all the chosen and given characteristics and feelings that the Self uses to live its desired version. This version is its Ideal.
Once, coming to the digital, the Self starts producing and consuming whilst the Ideal Self enters a period of "being produced and consumed". There, the audience takes part in the role of the Other(s). Nothing can be consumed in the digital realm without the figure of the Other. The Other provides acknowledgement of attitudes, beliefs, emotions that may be directly expressed in a comment or indirectly through the use of emoticons in order to prove or disprove. If the comments are not proving, there is the option to switch them off. This reinforces the chosen version of the Self to be narrated even more. Moreover, the interaction between Self and Others is unlimited of time and space. That is why it goes beyond the reality of here and now. It can enter the imaginary realm, where the consumption comes initially with unconstructed time, but with a constructed space -the individual Facebook profile. The profile becomes an individual being with a space of the Self with no fixed time periods. The audience (the chosen Other) also consumes it at its convenience.

The Self Towards the Other in an Order-Ed Consumption
Production and consumption will not be possible without the figure of the Other(s). Audiences (the list of friends and people who follow) that consume the shared information are also chosen by the Facebook profile's owner. This happens in few main ways: giving a public or private access, personal friend's list (that can be visible or not as well by choice), and restricting comments. The audiences serve as "tele-co-present others" (Zhao, 2005) that develop the relation with the Self of the owner. And these "tele-co-present others" can mirror the constructed Self through the responses given in any form.
The responses, however, are not only a sign of consumption of the Self (in the way how it is organised). They can also reinforce more action of sharing-posting. This is because the digital has distant contact. A person can desire how the Others view, perceive, and see his body, feelings, models, lifestyle and overall being. Hence, the person enters the Imaginary through producing more of the Self in its desired presented version (the Ideal) to receive desired reactions, emotions, and feelings. The more the Self is consumed, the more is produced. The high consumption may force the Self to act from its Ego because the individual forms his own reaction to the perceived opinions that come from the Others. Often, this can increase the desire to produce more digital postings and to re-produce these in order for the Ego to put pieces of the Self together that are narrated in an ordered way.
Lacan brings the terms of imaginary and real orders. In Lacanian psychosexual development, the Imagined order is the vision (the look) that the Ideal Ego and the Ideal image of the Ego keep together through imagination and fantasy. The digital realm provides a space where the Ideal Image of the Ego is externally looked at by the Others in posts. Moreover, still following Lacan, the Ego is examined through the process of identification with the Others. At the same time, the Symbolic order involves language and structure in the organisation of the subject (Self) itself. This represents an ongoing dynamic process where use of the self-created ways that were or are once displayed online, demonstrate the highly personal dynamic between conscious and unconscious and between Id and Superego. This manifests in a visible identification with the Other(s).
When sharing personal life content on Facebook through the self-created profile, the pattern of self-presentation needs to be considered in relation to the interaction with the chosen audience. According to Zhao, the digital Self is not separated fully from its non-digitalised version (Zhao, 2005). That said, the Self is presented in chosen parts and types of posted information. And, through different profiles. Thus, each Self can find some of its own aspects in many profiles (or posts) mirroring different audiences that consume what is presented. This proves the trend of individual's tendency to have a "narrative in nature" (Zhao, 2005). This means Selves can be creatively "crafted" and "multiplied" (Zhao, 2005). Hence, they can serve the Imaginary order. And, also, becoming the reasons why people provide the basis information to the chosen audience.
The presented parts can be seen into accessed conscious parts of the human psyche. As verbal face-to-face symbols (speech) cannot be used in the digital, the ones that replace them are text and images. Thus, the digital Self is presented in a limited way, dictated by a particular digital setting that offers different tools of presentation (text, images, tabs, hash tags, emoticons, etc.). The pattern of the conscious self-representation and selfproduction appears as consistent, or it can be traced in writing (statuses, emotions through emoticons). It forms a consistent prescribed modes of consumption by the audience that identifies the way how the Self (or its version) is expressed. This suggests identification with text posted, an image placed, a location tagged in, an opinion shared and etc. The identification may happen at any point on the line of shared emotion, shared opinion between the audience and the created Self. Therefore, through the identification with the Other(s) (that actively consume different versions) digital Self, it starts to live in the Imagined, but not in the Real. The Ideal Image of the Ego finds its arena for living, either produced in posts or multiplied in profiles.
However, the main way of how the Self is produced is through text. Text contains language. Forming a textual message is a cognitive process. Cognition is part of the conscious mind. Hence, expression the Self through the text is a conscious action. But the underlined force during this process is hidden. It can be unconscious. In the text, according to Lacan, "the subject" (the Self) constructs its "unique telling position" (Parker & Pavon-Cullier, 2014). In this position parts of the Self (or the whole Self) can be "symbolically represented" (with the use of an image or an emoticon in the post, for example). It gives a structure into the process of production where Self can exist.

The Self as a Subject of Language in a Facebook Profile
In the personal Facebook profile, the constructed story makes the Self predominantly a subject of language. And as such, it "generates particular truth" of its personal knowledge. Thus, it generates knowledge, through which Self becomes able "to generate reality" (Parker & Pavon-Cullier, 2014) as it is possible to imagine it, to feel it and create it in the digital. The shared fact from the personal life (date of marriage, birth, honeymoon, engagement as well as dates for online virtual meetings-workshops) starts to "function as a mechanism to the symbolic system" that serves the Self as a "sort of device". This device can "restore and reinforce" (Parker & Pavon-Cullier, 2014) Hence, like a bridge, it "transcends" the system beyond the reality principle, taking it from the realm of the real in the physical to the Imagined realm in the digital.
According to Carl Rogers, the self-concept is the set of ideas, attitudes, opinions, and beliefs everyone has about who they are. It sets up the way how the person sees themselves. It is represented in an image that everyone has inside. This image is created in certain conditions such as personal events, happening, attitudes, emotions out of an event, etc. Some of them are chosen to be displayed (shared). Some stay hidden from the audience. It depends on what is consumed the most. This forms a highly personally constructed discourse. Indeed, the idea of the Self and its image become highly subjective too. Moreover, the image is expressed through the personal discourse view that can be seen in the post written comments and the chosen pictures shared with the audience. Furthermore, it is organised in an ordered manner, according to the personal events in the individual's reality. It can correspond to moments of attitudes, emotions and opinions provoked by the importance they have to each Self. This importance forces manipulation of personal information-the choice of some events to be displayed and shared and keeping others hidden. This importance can be projected both into and onto the Ideal Self. It finds its life in the narrative (the pattern of presenting) in the digital realm. The projection can find its expression in the vision of Self that the Ego has so it can reach its Ideal.
The manner of presenting is influenced by selecting what to show. This forms the self-presentation. As it becomes narrated in identity that is part of the self-concept. However, here again the figure of the Other(s) appears in the identity and that makes its construction, production, and consumption a public process. The digital realm is one of these places that provides tools for construction, production, and consumption of identity. As explained by Stone (1981), the identity can be "placed" and "announced" in order to be "established" through "coincidence of placements" (Stone, G., 1981). In the digital realm this happens easily with manipulation of words, pictures, emoticons that aims to produce the desired version "detached from social encounters" (Zhao, Grasmick, & Martin, 2008) with the audience so that it can be born in its digital "disembodied" form.
Living in the Imaginary by existing in the Symbolic order (internet, Facebook) beyond reality may represent the Ideal Image of the Self, aiming to reach the state of the Ideal. Usually, the construction of identity in the digital setting has its forces from the social events that happen to the individual. Events such as becoming a parent, changing status via marriage, engagement, moments that bring status (such as vising universities, museums, embassies, hospitals, other famous place related to history or business, graduating, ending a certified course, winning a competition, etc.) become the visible part in the chosen shared knowledge about the personal life of an individual. And through the use of particular words, these places and events are manipulated to get "desired impression on the others" (Goffman, 1959).
Events, places, images, texts are combined together in a post to produce identity. Without revealing all the information, physical encounters, and happenings in the physical reality, but using a mnemonic function (combining few tools in one post to encode information such as songs, videos, pictures, parts of poems, famous saying or citations), the individual starts to form the Ideal Image of the Ego. This slowly can progress to 'fantasized identity' with the use of avatars in order to meet virtually and "interact in real time" overcoming physical boundaries -an idea that Facebook plans to build in the near future (CNN, 2021).

Emotions, Needs and Wishful Thinking Behind Actualising in the Digital
Lacan sees that humans experiencing something they miss. This lack can appear as a desire. It can force an individual to behave from his own unconscious desires. For Lacan human needs are converted into desires. Through sharing personal information in the digital realm, an unconscious instinct can manifest itself as a desire. It can then attempt to fulfil something. Hence, the shared personal life on Facebook through the created profile can replace a missing piece. Or, it can fill a gap of emotions as they were felt by the Self. It can simply correspond to a cognition in the mind that generates feelings. It can be a desire to feel and/ or to be seen in a particular way. And language (from the Symbolic order) is the vehicle that helps for this to be expressed, constructed, and experienced in the digital. For Lacan, language has a creative function -"enunciating" (Parker & Pavon-Cullier, 2014). Enunciation is pronouncing. In digital form it is writing, posting, and sharing. The Lacanian "act of the Word" becomes the act of the Post. The post has its own distinct symbolic system through images, texts, emoticons, links, videos and etc. The moment of the construction of the post is, therefore, as an expression of the Self in the Lacanian sense of "enunciating act" online. The manner of Self-production of the Self in its Lacanian context is the "articulated discourse" that creates the "entire imaginary reality of the Ego" in which "the Other is the mirror" (Parker & Pavon-Cullier, 2014). In virtual reality, The Ideal image of the Ego does not only live within the production and the consumption of the facts. It also lives in the emotions around these facts because the human emotional world is not very separated from ideas, beliefs, and attitudes.
Digitally, emotions have a psychosocial way of happening. They rise in the physical and may, then, be expressed in the digital. Digital is the new social that has a Symbolic order. Emotions and desires may be initiated in the digital and may be experienced in the physical. Anyhow, emotions represent an orientation in the environment and the world, "both in relation to ourselves as individuals and to others" (Tucker & Ellis, 2020). The digital gives individuals another area of social connections that form digital events. These digital events are made from the physical and with added pieces, they may form (or trigger) emotions and affects that together can construct "the ways we experience the world" (Tucker & Ellis, 2020). That is why emotions appear in a post through an image, a text, a link. They are visibly presented by an emoticon, which is a type of mnemonic. They can also be found in a personal comment that mirrors the post. They are live in and through the personal narrative-in words and construction.
Emotions may become a powerful force for identification between the created digital Self and the Others that form the audience. Thus, emotions "constitutes analogic processing" (Tucker & Ellis, 2020). And when sharing personal life events, the emotion is much deeper as it is related to an experience in the physical that finds its expression in the digital. And the construction may follow the emotion(s) that the person experiences (or does not experience) in the physical, but it can be created through the actual post in the digital in order to actualize the Ideal image. Sharing a personal event (such as giving birth or getting married, for example) has importance in the life of the individual with some degree of emotional input and value. At the same time, this event may trigger analogic processes in which may equate to "represent arousal (amount of) and valence (type of)" (Tucker & Ellis, 2020). This can captivate the space of the Imagined.
If an individual has an experience that is related to fear or it is fear itself, this can "co-exist with (or transform into) one relating to excitement" (Tucker & Ellis, 2020). If an emotion transforms, it takes the Self beyond the reality in the Imagined where the Other makes the order and fills the missing pieces that the Ego desires to have. The figure of the Other in the digital realm steps into reach the Ideal. In the Imagined, all the aspects of the emotions have an opportunity to live in the selected pictures and text. They construct the personal discourse that structures an event in posting for the purpose of the representation that delivers emotions. As a part of its identity, the formed discourse will be consumed by the chosen audience. With the use of Mnemonics, the Ideal Image of the Self feeds the Ego.

Distantly Present through the "Looking-Glass Self"
As emotions take place in their digital form, it is important to see how they develop at first place. The concept of "looking-glass self" can be used to explaining the creation of the digital Self that represents the personal self-perception, which come together with a narrative of posts and behaviours in the digital space. In the meaning of Cooley and with consideration of social part of the mind, "the looking-glass self" describes how people's identity is based on how the others perceive it. Therefore, the reactions of others in the digital socialization define and determine the Self and its social (digital) appearance (Cooley, 1902).
Facebook provides tools from the virtual realm to actualize the Ideal Image. It also facilitates conditions that offer a great choice for constructing (such as images, text, videos, links, compositions, options for increasing or decreasing audiences, etc.) -what is desired to 'be' and what is desired to 'feel'. Both can fulfil human needs. The construction, however, includes imagination. In psychiatric literature imagination is related to wishful thinking. While being in the digital realm, it can progress to a feeling that may be "determined not be our wishes, but by our needs" (Horney, 1991). These needs can find its satisfaction in the "curation of the self through the social networking" and how this "has mediated the emergence of the online profiles" (Ibrahim, 2018). Therefore, needs such as self-love, self-esteem, self-acceptance, self-worth can find their examination in the narration of the Facebook profile, through sharing of personal events in a chosen, by the individual, way, according to his needs.
However, the needs are related to the desire, which, in the perspective of Yasmin Ibrahim, is a "notion of desireits own and that of the others" (Ibrahim, 2018). As this desire relates to needs, it may lead to a pre-occupation ijps.ccsenet.org International Journal of Psychological Studies Vol. 14, No. 2; with the own created image, especially if this image brings emotions that serve the Ideal. All of this happens through the "seeing oneself through the perspective of the others" (Ibrahim, 2018) where desired emotions may come up in the process of consumption of digital Self by the audience. In this sense, a post that uses pictures from personal events (such as giving birth, marriage, attending an event, being with a particular person that has a value, etc.) makes the Self "to be inserted in these composition" (Ibrahim, 2018) that the post has. The composition can be emotional. It has a moment of choice -choosing what exactly, how, in what order, to satisfy a need. Or to satisfy a need. This is because the chosen images (accompanied by a text sometimes) in a post, "are consumed by the self and others who have an implicit understanding of those conventions of the everyday" (Ibrahim, 2018). To an extend this means the chosen audience is already informed about the events prior to the shared one and the share is known already.
The emotional identification between the Self and the audience happens (and becomes stronger with each post) through the emotions constructed, shared. When the emotional message is sent to the audience, it is consumed and thus, people easily 'click' with the post, once they identify with something (emotions, opinion, status). Moreover, each post, becomes a "part of self-representation that entails creating personal content". In brief, the image "turns into performative" (Ibrahim, 2018). It shares personal life moments in which the Ideal image lives its life once the Self is inserted in the whole composition and emotions on the created post.

The Digital Identity in the Literature
Literature often discusses the role of motivation, motives, and desires and if they can answer the question about what draws individuals to spend a lot of time online. The main area of research is concentrated on professional networking, online marketing, ways of representing products, impression formation, online dating, etc. The emergence of the digital Self is also discussed. However, questions related to what draws individuals to create their digital identity and how, by doing this, they stay beyond the Real, remain unanswered. That is why this article has mainly the aim to fill the gap in describing the state of mind behind the mechanics and actions in the digital. Therefore, two moments could be discussed and seen mainly from the theories of Carl Rogers and Karen Horney in relation to production. Further, Lacan joins with explanation of the importance of the figure of the Other in consumption.
One is related to receiving satisfaction and the other is related to the role of imagination. However, both bring conditions of worth. But conditions are factors that facilitate human reality. In Rogerian meaning, applied to the digital, these are external factors that bring value to ourselves and measure self-worth based on personal abilities to meet the personal conditions, placed by humans on themselves. Therefore, posting becomes part of a "organismic valuing process" that the "inherent tendency" for actualizing creates the direction for "receiving positive regard or love". Or at least developing conditions of worth by establishing a behaviour in the digital that is "an organized whole" (Proctor, 2017). Actualization here is the full development of one's Self in the version the person desires to be. This explanation brings the contribution of this work to the literature in the field.
And as Facebook profile provides an environment that is "constituted by the human perception of it", it becomes the main space where the Imagined fulfils a desire "regardless of how it relates to reality" because in postingthis reality is not fully revealed. Moreover, with language as a part of the Symbolic order, the digital identity that the Self creates, the Ideal image starts to operate in the constructed posts that sent emotions to the Others. Their "feedback" keeps the organism "on the beam" of satisfying his motivational needs" that may be related to the instinctive desire to stabilize the image. That is why it needs the guarantee of the presence of the Other who gives "a condition of worth" when "the positive regard of a significant other is conditional, when the individual feels that in some respects he is prized" (Proctor, 2017).
Keeping personal narration thematically in posts and reproducing the same sense of Self, the profiles' owner leads the audience "toward positively valued experiences and avoidance toward negatively valued experiences" (Proctor, 2017). This creates one-sided "environment which for theoretical purposes may be said to exist only" in the human, "or to be of his own creation" (Proctor, 2017) in order the Ideal Image to bring worth and importance back to the Ego in the physical. This moment gets very close to the Lacanian symbol of F in the restless image. And again, based on Lacan, this image can get stabilized by the Symbolic. And from the look of the big Other. This identification with the Other (in the process of consumption) serves exactly a purpose-to stabilize the Self through the text and images in the digital. However, there is something beyond the stabilization of the Self and its shared and consumed emotions. And this is the drive that forms the motivation for stabilizing, for fixing, for making the Self whole.
According to the theory of repression by Freud (1915), the life drive seeks satisfaction that can find limits of expression in the society or from some areas of society. The drive can be examined in many areas of life, ijps.ccsenet.org International Journal of Psychological Studies Vol. 14, No. 2; 2022 including socialization. As the social media is an area of socialization, it is logical for the drive to find its place there. Sometimes it can fully blossom there. Freud sees the Ego developing alongside learning how to control the impulses and their transference to the others in a social environment. Adding to Freud, Karen Horney sees the drive "compulsive" in nature. The nature "stems" from "self-idealization" that is "neurotic solution" (Horney, 1991). In the view of Horney, the drive goes toward a desire for "glory" that is "hidden". Then the individual may develop a "trend" of acting out the needs in order to satisfy the "search for glory" (Horney, 1991) with examining an emotion coming from within or getting emotions in responses from the audience. As Horney thinks, the most important fact is what the individual "is driven on the road to glory" (Horney, 1991). Therefore, another important characteristic of the compulsive nature of the drive is "its indiscriminateness" (Horney, 1991).
This means the Self must be in the "centre of the attention" being "the most original", "the most attractive" (Horney, 1991) in the image (role) that the individual has chosen to present in a particular post. And this image (role) needs to satisfy the audience-the Other that consumes this Image. This is an Ideal Image created by the Ego, driven by "self-idealization" in which the imagination plays a central role in creating with the use of text, filters, emoticons, images, videos, etc.) The digital (Facebook, for instance) is a social environment where the life drive can lead to achieving a self-glory. It can go through different postings, but also in the created and followed by the self-narration. In the narration (that is part of a search for glory), the Ideal Image of the Ego can actualize through the imagination.
According to Horney, imagination is "the instrument in the process of self-idealisation" (Horney, 1991). However, the imagination brings some unrealistic elements and "no matter how much a person prides himself on being realistic, no matter how realistic indeed his march toward perfection is, his imagination accompanies him and makes mistake a mirage for the real thing" (Horney, 1991). This explains why the construction of the digital Self that actualizes the Ideal image of the Ego goes beyond the reality principle. The imagination is related to "wishful thinking". This thinking may appear in the post through the order of the text, chosen words, chosen pictures and digital tools, driven by the inner desire of the individual to satisfy a need. For instance, it may aim to "brush off pain and suffering" (Horney, 1991) in the physical realm so that it can operate in "changing the neurotic beliefs" (Horney, 1991).
So, by constructing a digital Self that is represented in a particular way and by ordering the information in each post to satisfy a need, the individual may "discarding all the disturbing evidence" from the physical, constructing it in the digital. And this gets into "distortions of inner and outer reality" (Horney, 1991). The main aim here is to avoid the negative feelings (such as pain) and hence, to actualize the Ideal. Then, the individual may lose his capacity to face reality, but he will go beyond the reality principle to glorify itself in his Ideal Image of his Ego.

Forming the Ideal Image of the Ego, Beyond the Real
According to Lacan (2006), during the Mirror Stage, individuals begin to know themselves as "I", creating a difference in the self-image. The "I" comes to be objectified by the identification with the Other in a "dialectic form" (Lacan, 2006). Hence, when language comes to play a role, the "I" becomes an object. Then, for Lacan, the "Ideal I" forms. It "situates the agency called Ego", but "prior to its social determination" (Lacan, 2006), through language. Therefore, the "I" is mentally positioned, but it finds its composition in the physical body. And the images start to function in the "relationship between the organism and its reality" (Lacan, 2006). Considering the presence of the dialectic form, this links the "I" with a range of social situations in which the "I" may find its Ideal through the work of the Ego to stabilize the Self.
Lacan thinks that the Ego has its critical phase of development. It is explained in relation to an external image of the body that is produced (reflected in the mirror). This image triggers a mental representation of the "I", which is cognitive. It develops with thoughts, imaginations, visions about the "I", etc. They can form a perception of the Self, with which the individual identifies. Following Lacan, this image of united body that the individual identifies with, does not accord with undeveloped physical body. The result of this mismatch finds its expression in the Ideal towards which an individual strives to actualize throughout his life.
This striving in life relates to the Ego a lot as the Ego becomes dependent on external objects and on the figure of the Other (the Others). This can lead to developing of the Rogerian external locus of evaluation, through which individuals make a "value judgement" about themselves. It is based on external factors such as environment, presence of Others. Thus, they "introject the value of the others" into the concept of the Self. This is an examination of introjection as defence mechanism of the Ego that looks to satisfy the need for self-worth.
Relatively, Rogers links this moment with "conditions of worth" (Rogers, 1957), which give the feeling of how much people are accepted and wanted as what they are.
Taking the conditions of worth that each individual experience in childhood, the Ego may become dependent of external people and objects (such as Facebook and the chosen Others in the consuming audience there). At the same moment, the Ego is involved through introjection "in which people are motivated to demonstrate ability (or avoid failure) in order to maintain feelings of worth" (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Introjection (which means self-assimilation) is part of the formation of the Ideal image because it relates to "extrinsic motivation" -it "refers to the performance of an activity in order to attain some separable outcome". Moreover, "extrinsic motivation is regulation through identification" (Ryan & Deci, 2000). This identification is within the social relations and communications.
Communication and social connecting happen through language and the other tools from the Symbolic Order. That said, the figure of the Other may be seen within the social and linguistic construction. And this construction (having already external locus of control in place), can form a personality. And personality can identify with the image and its scenario of self-presentation. Lacan explains the Image as seen by the individual in identification with the Other that occurs. The identification can happen with the look in the mirror or in the image of the caregiver in childhood. And this image becomes dependent on the external Other(s).
As the individual enters the external Symbolic world (online or/and offline), he discovers and engages with the symbols (codes, words, language, text). However, this world is already pre-existing. It is pre-existing because Facebook and internet for some is before their birth. This Order is understood through cognitions-mental pictures (thoughts and views about the Self), particular schemas (ways) about everything that happens around. Lacan thinks that the Ego has an imaginary nature as humans are interested in their image (Lacan, 1989). When having a mirror (this equals the figure of the Other in the digital), the individual may explore the connection between them and their image. Therefore, the mirror develops a sense of self-identity (Facebook profile as the digital appearance/ look os the Self) and the individual sees himself externally. If the mirror is replaced by the figure of the Other-the individual can see himself in the Other, from the response of the Other to the extent of which-the more this external view is positive and fulfilling, the more it is craved. The craving does not come from the self-identification, but because of the self-recognition which produces the fascination and creates pleasure as a result of it.
Further in explanation, as the formation of the Ego, for Lacan, is happening when an identification with the external happens, the Image of the Ego becomes an Ideal because there is a mismatch between internal and external reality. For instance, when the created digital Self does not correspond with the real Self and then the image becomes an Ideal image of the Ego towards which there is a constant attempt for achieving. This achievement can come through posts where specific life events (such as becoming a parent, marriage, vising a location, representing a job or a professional status, etc.) are shared in a constructed individual way. But the aim is to reach unity. Moreover, the Ego creates its image through Facebook profile with which as an instrument of the external, the Self starts to identify and gets recognition. The recognition comes from the responses by the Others that feed the Ego, whose identity is captured by the idealized images and fantasies about the Self being with a partner (using tags), displaying the emotions around this shared life event in text with emoticons, marking the location, etc. Hence, creating a personal digital event that originates from the physical.

Sharing is not Always Caring
Some moments can be shared. Others not. The shared moments usually aim to "selectively allow content onto their profiles, post pictures, and descriptions of themselves in ways that best represent their ideal self-views" (Vogel, Rose, Roberts, & Eckles, 2014). Hence, reaching the Ideal can come from Horney's "search for glory" (Horney, 1991) in which imagination is a tool for creating, shaping, forming in desired order. The "search for glory", in Horney's view, goes "into the fantastic", the realm of "unlimited possibilities" (Horney, 1991). This search start to happen by the needs, but not by the wishes, as imagination works for the Self from wishful thinking. In that sense, imagination gets the Self into the Imaginary realm (digital) where to actualize the Ideal image, an "incessant labour" needs to be put (Horney, 1991).
As imagination has its mental function, possibilities (such as "hope, fear, believe, plan, wish") (Horney, 1991) are shown and on the way of self-actualization or self-glorification in the digital, the imagination is quite productive when building the Ideal image of the Ego in the personal narration. The more negative feeling is in the real, the more positive content builds the Ideal Image. By the same token, a study has found "viewing social media profiles with positive content was associated with poorer state self-esteem and relative self-evaluations" (Vogel, Rose, Roberts, & Eckles, 2014). It may be concluded that, the Self may lose its reality by avoiding the negative and can become consumed with its idealization in which the Ego is absorbed by a constant production and confirmation of the positive. Then, the digital Self starts to live beyond the reality principle in the personal narrative that each Facebook profile has.
Because of this the individual lives in the Symbolic and it becomes a product of addressing the external. And all from the Symbolic (mnemonics, language, structure) relates to the sense of social setting in the digital. As Facebook allows ways to organise a system of symbols in which the Symbolic virtually can become alive. In this system the Self can constantly connect to many Others as external beings. Each personal Facebook profile becomes the Symbolic world where individuals can "re-create their biography and personality" (Zhao et al., 2018). The Ego manifests in the identification with the others, but it stays concentrated on itself. Therefore, the digital Self may be known and unknown to the audience as the Ego may hide and reveal, show and hide pieces of Self based on what needs to feel and fulfil.
In a similar sense, Zhao et al. (2018) describes two "possible selves" -the "suppressed or hidden true self" and the "unrealistic or fantasized ideal self" (Zhao et al., 2018). Both are part of the virtually created image of the Self that is known, shared to the others, being in the Symbolic and identified with them as external Others. In the case an individual "may think that he or she has the potential of becoming a famous movie star, but it lacks an audition opportunity to show his or her acting talents", the profile on Facebook may become a good area for actualization of what is believed, but it is missing. By the same token, constructing a post about a personal life event such as marriage, becoming a parent, visiting a popular location) may actualise socially and emotionally what is believed (but it is missing in reality) through the Imagined.
Another example could be added, which has become a common trend is "becoming" professional in an area (such as therapist, coach, sport guru, promoter, etc.) where the person may have a little potential but may not have accredited (socially proved) education, knowledge and qualifications. However, individual believes in his potential and expressed his beliefs and self-visions in language, images, links, videos, life streams, etc. in order to actualize a "hoped-for possible self". Or in other words, to actualize an identity people "hope to establish but are unable to in face-to-face situations" (Zhao et al., 2018). Therefore, the "possible Self" may be actualised with the use of chosen pictures, chosen words, constructed videos driven by imagination and wishful thinking in the Horney's "search for glory" (Horney, 1991). This is an explanation how through the tools of social media, the Ego works out the self-actualization of the Self in a more Imagined (created by itself) than Real (social approved) way. Hence, the credentials in each profile can be a product of the Ego.
In summary, the Symbolic world of language helps for a personal narration to be developed and the presentation of the Self in the digital to follow one line that identifies with the Others in the same way. At this point, the digital Self may start to live entirely in the virtual space in its unrealistic Ideal form while fully detaching consciously with the "supressed or hidden true" form. Therefore, the Symbolic setting on Facebook can create the Ideal Image, beyond the reality principle.

The Digital Self in Parts
Being distantly social and distantly present When the digital Self is created, there is a moment of "depersonalization" (Caffrey, 2017). It happens when the individuals interact with social groups in a social setting. In digital interaction with the groups taking the role of the Other, individual identity is developed. The development of identity in the digital is related to communication with the Others and "managed through direct impression" (Caffrey, 2017). Moreover, "sociometer theory-suggests that a person's self-worth is primarily derived from the feedback they receive from others" (Vogel, Rose, Roberts, Eckles, 2014). The identity in the digital becomes alive through the responses from the Others in responses under a particular post. However, the Others become the main engine that runs the digital Self by affirming their self-view in the personal narrative.
As, according to the symbolic interactionists, the "self has its social nature" (Mead, 1934), digital Self constructs through its online identity "desired impression of the others" (Goffman, 1959). Being in the Symbolic order the Self starts to exist within the context of the personal posts and status updates and tags. The Self is everywhere in a different form of presence, but never fully present in a whole because this version of the Self is freed from its physical component once it enters the digital. Thus, the space of interaction with the Others on Internet is "fully disembodied" (Caffrey, 2017), particularly on Facebook, where the setting creates environment to introduce pieces that allow differentiation and fragmentation of the whole. Therefore, the digital identity can be produced and consumed in parts-small fragments that contain an important bit essence from the whole. Each fragment may have different importance for its owner and that is why it can be presented in specific way, through different tools such as comments, emoticons, other words, links, videos, images. Every part can be a post, with text only. It may have a word with many pictures, it may be a status update, or just a link of a song that clicks with the current mood of the individual. Through sharing, this forms interpersonal communication between the Self and the Other.
Once a post being responded through being liked, disliked, with a comment or emoticon, the shared part becomes affirmed by the audience because this indicates that it has been consumed. Then, the consumption becomes visible (let's say with a like, emoticon, comment) and goes back to the profile owner who starts to internalize it. Internalization occurs through introjection of being identified with the emotion that the symbol, comment or the whole post brings. After that, carried on further until the next piece of the identity is produced. And this process comes in few steps in the same way how the actual posting comes with picturing the life event, choosing the pictures that will fit the best the Ideal self, being liked and responded (therefore, consumed) by the chosen audience. And finally, after the created part is consumed back by the individual, the process gets into a psychoanalytic level where introjection leads to self-affirmation, self-interpretation on the way for the selfglorification-to reach the Ideal.
However, being in the digital through the created identity, the Self-concept becomes consumed from distance. There is distance through the device. The device is the entrance to the digital realm. By being known, seen, responded, commented, the Self examines episodic interaction with every comment and every post. Moreover, it can be further built-in parts with additional posting, creation of event (usually webinars, life streams, etc.). However, it is "constructed under a unique set of constraints" from a distance. The device puts a wall. Therefore, the process of constructing and producing identity is distant, but it performs an action of escaping from "real-world restraints such as social norms, legislation and responsibilities" (Hu, Zhao, & Huang, cited by Caffrey, 2017).
By entering the digital and escaping from the real, by producing the identity in pieces, by keeping a constructed narrative in the personal Facebook account, the digital Self (with the use of digital tools) facilitates "enhancement" of some "narcissistic qualities and the cultivation of a 'self' (Caffrey, 2017). And by being consumed by the Others, the "internal influences on the self are becoming externalized". Thus, using chosen tools, words, pictures, events to be presented online, on choice, the Self "becomes externalized" (Caffrey, 2017) in the digital realm. Moreover, through the self-production and self-affirmation, the Self engages with self-posting of its Ideal version and this "confirms the sense of an idealized self" (Andreassen, Pallese, Griffits, cited by Caffrey, 2017). The comments from the audience, its emotional responses create self-reflection in which the Self is seen through the lenses of the Others, even though there is a whole reality that puts them apart-the physical reality.
In the digital realm, the Other is also disembodied, but it stays related. This is because the Other is relational, interpersonal, incorporated into the contemporary process of producing Self digitally. The Other is on the other side as a present but estranged. He comes and goes in the digital in his own timeframe. But this estrange-ness maintains the distance that creates space for "primary ambivalence". Then, according to Lacan, the subject (Self) start to identify with the Other, according to Lacan. Slowly the Other (or the audience) begins to bring symbolic identification in the digital self-representation. And this connection Self-Other in the virtual world mimics the Lacanian "double mirror device" (Vanheule, 2011), keeping the effect of language and images.

Selves in Distance
With progression of every post or a comment, the image of the Self that is perceived start to be produced in fragments. Doing this in the digital as part of the Symbolic, the profile owner sees his image (his Ego) that starts to desire to see the whole. The Ego projects itself on the Other through the desire. And then, with this desire, the imaginary increase the process of production and reproduction so that it can start to form the idea of the Ideal Image that the Ego makes distantly present through language and distantly social through postings.
The post creates the distance. In fact, through expression of feelings, thoughts, emotions, mental state in the text, every post is "retroactive demonstration of the real subject who will have existed through the act" (Parker & D. Pavon-Cueller, 2014) of posting a chosen content. It serves the Imaginary (in the perception) through the symbols (language, emoticons, etc.) used. The Imaginary is incorporated in the Symbolic because the Symbolic provides a setting and tools that the Ego uses in order to for its Ideal image. Furthermore, this image has sense of presence, being, existence visually in unfixed space, time and context. This is because they are part of the Symbolic that narrates the Imagined and serves the Ideal Image of the Ego. Language constitutes in the image, and it creates emotions around and within this image. Therefore, emotions are felt in the physical but expressed and experienced in the digital.
This proves the separated realms of physical and virtual, which an individual crosses and between which personal emotions shift. Such situation of being in the distance between two realms has a reason in the uncomfortable picture of the real. Refusal to face the real can come from avoidance of struggles, pain that prevent production of pleasure. In order to get that pleasure, the Self actualizes a chosen part in order to reach the Ideal. Any pain and struggle may bring the individual to reality, but not accepting the real is due to the search for the glory in the virtual world, in order to reach the Ideal.
The digital realm makes the wishful thinking happen by the imagining. Imagined is developed on few foundations around the self-worth. As identification is the base of consumption, through the consumption of the Self, introjected values come from the responses of the Others. They develop a sense of worth that are taken by the Ego in pieces, which gets fulfilment from the digital in the version it wants. It builds this version episodically and sporadically. It displays personal events from the physical reality, so the Self takes the meaning of the event and puts it as a part to the Image that the Ego generates. Therefore, posting about being a parent, husband, wife, daughter, a professional (self-employed jobs such as coaches, well-being specialist, healers and all claimed professions that are without a university degree) can be as much real as imagined and as much lived as created.
But reaffirming this role (as real or imagined) in the Symbolic through producing content, the Ideal slowly starts to be reach, even from distance.
In brief, the created Image starts to live in language, in text, in posts. Its Ideal begins to exist in the relation between the Self and the Other where the subject forms an identity. And as this connection is significant and it is driven by the belongingness, the Ego becomes intersected by the connection with the audience. This develops an external locus of evaluation and it becomes a foundation of the personal narrative and the personal discourse. In addition, being congruent in producing and consuming the Self in pieces posted here and there, now and before, the Self reaches its Ideal. And the use of language and images in the Symbolic order not only form the pieces of identity, but also form emotions that are expressed, produced, and consumed. That said, the emotions keep the Imaginary going through the personal discursive practise of representation beyond the reality principle. This is a very much 'imaginary principle' that is forced from the drives, exists through the emotions, run by the desire and maintained by the Ideal. The Ego identifies with the Other (the audience) and as much as it gets positive emotion, existence and it is recognised, it can become a force for posting, sharing, being in the digital through indirect distant communication.

Conclusion-Outside the Body
Beyond the reality principle in the search for the Ideal Image of the Self Computer-based communication occurs through an additional device disembodies communication between people. This forms a social phenomenon of existing in one transnational community where representation of 'who you are' (the Self) in all the aspects, can be constructed through the services offered by different platforms in the web. Using the tools that Facebook provides (language, images, links, live streams, etc.), individuals can represent themselves publicly by constructing a profile with limited or an open access, establishing a selected audience. This forms a closed system of communication between digital Self and the Other(s).
Each profile is constructed by the individual that choses its characteristics (name, location, profile picture) with an idea of "why and how" that composes a personal discourse, produced through posts. Posts are the small pieces of the big idea. An idea about 'who I am, what I am, how I am'. The coherent postings that have consistency in the theme presented, become congruent with the idea of "why and how" the Self constructed, needs to be. Thus, it keeps the narration of the Self developing, producing, functioning.
The presence of the Self in its own narrative is visual (through pictures, videos, live streams), but not physical as there is a distance in communication through the device. So, the virtual realm gives experience that is outside of body, but very inside the mind. This experience happens from a digital identity that produces, reproduces, and maintains its Ideal image. The image is well-controlled by the Ego which is led by the Ideal. The Ideal itself is a product of the Imaginary and it feeds the Ego providing values, worth, recognition, confirmation, and moments of glory. Emotions come to play around these digital events of being. It goes beyond body in reality when it enters the Imagined world of the Ideal in which the Ego produces content in pieces and constructs different roles directed by the desire. This desire looks for the Other to connect and finds connection through language. As the desire is projected on the Other by the Ego, the role of the well-chosen Others in the personal profile, is very important. Existing in the digital, the Ego finds the connection through episodic posts with chosen images, status and location updates so that the Ego gets what it needs from the Other to manage its identity, to construct the Ideal image and to experience the state of self-actualization and self-glorification.
By crossing the border of the physical, self-representation serves the self-impression that functions through the Symbolic order. This directs the process of production that is embedded in the communication between the Self and the Others. Particular characteristics of the individual are chosen and presented. Some characteristics could have its potential in the physical, but if they are not actualized in eligible way there, they become able to be actualized in the digital. The profile choses to identify with other profiles (based on physical relationship, status, opinion, hobbies, etc.). Thus, the Facebook profile becomes self-produced, high individualized image of the Self presented by parts (word, link, video, status update) and in parts (episodic postings). These parts are consumed through the interaction between the Self and the Other established by the Symbolic (digital) order. The more the profile is active, the more is consumed. The more is consumed; the more Ego desires to produce it. Then consumption can be extended in chats, forums, live streams, online zoom meetings, etc. With this extension the digital Self becomes even more fragmented, but widespread, flexible, plastic that strengthens the Ideal image.
Communication between Self and the Other confirms the image that the Ego takes as universal. The maintenance of this image works for the self-actualization and self-glorification in its digital version. Reaching the Ideal is framed by the Imaginary, which directs creation of the Ideal image through the Ego that examines its instinctual satisfaction. As a result, internal needs are immediately met becoming a profiled part of a social platform such as Facebook. Paradoxically, Freud's ego acts according to reality principle, but in the digital reality through the construction of Ideal image, the Ego goes beyond the real and "determines" its "entire imaginary reality" (Parker & Pavon-Cuellar, 2014) where existence, being and functioning are distant processes that question their authentic real happening.

Disclosure:
The authors do not have any conflicts of interest to report.