Performing Pain: Social Media, Identity, and the Emergence of performative Mental Illness in Generation Z

To preliminarily validate the model, a mixed-methods pilot survey was administered to 38 participants drawn from the Gen Z population (ages 13–27) via snowball sampling. The instrument assessed five domains: childhood emotional environment, attachment and emotional regulation, social media and mental health identity, performative behavior and validation-seeking, and perception and awareness. Findings revealed meaningful associations between conditional caregiver attention in childhood, elevated attachment anxiety, and online validation-seeking behavior, consistent with the developmental trajectory the VPP Model proposes. Qualitative responses identified four recurring themes: dual awareness of social media's effects, relational substitution through online communities, skepticism toward self-diagnosis, and emotional guardedness.The paper argues that social media functions not as a cause of mental illness but as an amplifier of pre-existing developmental vulnerabilities, and that understanding this distinction is essential for designing more effective clinical, educational, and policy responses to Gen Z's complex relationship with psychological distress. The VPP Model represents an original theoretical contribution to the literature on adolescent mental health, digital behavior, and identity formation.