How Social Media Is Changing Our Personalities | Dr. Kibby McMahon & Connor FlanneryHow Social Media Is Changing Our Personalities | Dr. Kibby McMahon & Connor Flannery
A Little Help For Our Friends
Psychologist Dr. Kibby McMahon and creator Connor Flannery talk about how social media shapes identity, empathy and relationships, especially for those who grow up online. They reflect on comment culture, parasocial bonds and the psychological traits that social platforms may reward.
59:04•23 Sept 2026
How Social Media Rewires Identity, Empathy and Everyday Relationships
Episode Overview
- Identity is heavily shaped by interactions with others, and polarised online feedback (“you’re amazing” or “you’re awful”) can distort that sense of self.
- Negative comments represent a tiny, self-selected slice of an audience, so using them as meaningful feedback is often misleading and emotionally damaging.
- Creators may protect their mental health by avoiding comment sections and focusing instead on objective data like retention curves.
- Parasocial relationships can feel intimate but lack the mutuality and perspective-taking that makes face-to-face relationships emotionally "nutritious".
- Quantifiable metrics like follower counts and views can subtly encourage traits such as narcissism and social climbing in both creators and audiences.
“Identity is basically how you are relating to other people. It's like you and who you are in space relative to other people.”
What drives someone to seek a life that’s lived partly online and judged by likes, views, and comments? This conversation between psychologist Dr. Kibby McMahon and social media strategist Connor Flannery takes that question head-on, looking at how growing up on the internet reshapes identity, empathy, and relationships.
Connor, a YouTube creator with “about a quarter of a billion views per month,” shares what it was like to form his sense of self through follower counts and comment sections rather than playgrounds and in-person friendships.
Kibby brings the psychology, grounding the chat in the idea that “identity is basically how you are relating to other people… our interactions with people shape our identity”, then asks what happens when those interactions are filtered through anonymous (or not-so-anonymous) comments and algorithm-driven feeds. You’ll hear them unpack why one cruel comment can overshadow hundreds of kind ones, why Connor once quit YouTube for two months, and how he eventually became “numb” to negative feedback through sheer exposure.
There’s a sharp look at “comment section culture” and how online cruelty can spread when people don’t see the real human being behind the screen – or the “sad face”, as Kibby puts it. They also get into parasocial relationships: those one-sided bonds with creators that can feel intimate but lack genuine back-and-forth. Kibby compares them to “ultra-processed food” – emotionally tasty, but missing the nutritional value of real-world connection.
Connor, meanwhile, reflects on how traits like narcissism and social climbing may be subtly rewarded in social media spaces where everything, including people, comes with a number. If you’ve ever worried about kids, partners, or yourself being “chronically online”, this episode gives you plenty to think about – and might nudge you to ask who, exactly, is shaping your sense of self today.
Do you want to link to this podcast?
Get the buttons here!
More From This Show
The latest episodes from the same podcast.