Seeking Your True Self in the Virtual World

In her book, It's Complicated, Danah Boyd expresses her views on modern-day social media and the modern-day teenager's reliability with it. The book is comprised of 8 enlightening categories: identity, privacy, addiction, danger, bullying, inequality, literacy, and searching for a public of their own. Throughout the book, Boyd provides data, true stories, and factual conversations to help support her main claim: social media has taken over our youth.

There will always be a few things that a person does not feel comfortable with about their own body that leads them to hide it. These things could be aspects of their identity or their physical features that they feel must be hidden away in order to fit better into the mainstream. In his essay, “Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights” Kenji Yoshino discusses the effects “covering” has on marginalized groups in the United States. He defines “covering” as the ability “to tone down a disfavored identity to better fit into the mainstream” (Yoshino 294). In her essay, “Alone Together” Sherry Turkle discusses how the pervasive use of technology like “online communities” is detrimental to people. She worries that with frequent use of technology that people will begin to become indifferent to authenticity in their everyday lives. Both authors worry about whether individuals will unite regardless of their covering or their excessive use of online communities or not. Individuals are pulled further apart from each other due to their excessive use of virtual worlds and covering of their identities.

Online identity expands real identity is Turkle's third point. The user may choose to be anyone he or she wants in cyberspace. There are no boundaries on who or what a person may be. A user can express many different aspects of his or her personality without being made fun of because no one would know the truth. A man may be a woman because he wants to engage in his feminine side. The other users may not know it is a man because in cyberspace, others only know what it told to them. If a person chooses, he or she may change gender, age, physical characteristics, and such. A fat man can easily become a beautiful woman in a few key strokes. On the other hand, one may express their nonconformities in a safe way and not have to repress them. A user may be blunt and be proud of it without receiving a black eye for it. Therefore, online identity expands real identity.

Though many characterize their identity with others’ perception of themselves, sincere identity is rather an internal set of beliefs and values that shape a person’s behavior--inside out, not outside in. In the modern world of technology, identity increasingly has become the image of someone created online, put on display for the internet. The era of interconnectivity, technological social interactions, and instant feedback develops an insecure, outward-looking society that forms their social media platforms into “highlight reels” of their life, posting perfectly filtered and angled masterpieces of their most exciting activities. Rather than try to compare their genuine life with these seemingly vastly superior profiles, most create

Everyone realized that MySpace was being too cluttered with spam and negated by the owners, users switched over to Facebook. Facebook allowed several new features that MySpace did not, for example: games like FarmVille, “poking” and more. As a result of social media, people have become more connected with each other, but consequently less connected with the real world. If people are less connected with the real world, then what is so beneficial about social media?

As a person goes through their life, they encounter many choices and options. The most obvious ones are what they will wear, eat, or do for each day of their life. Everything that they do, even the most simple decisions, can and will impact them and who they are as a person. This will become a part of their identity. However, as the social beings humans are, their identities can be effected by those around them, virtually and physically. Most especially, every person’s identity is affected by the opinions and thoughts of others which can be expressed online, through verbal comments, and body language. This causes each person to question themselves and attempt to view themselves from the eyes of others. And when people question their identities

Online social networks have become increasingly populated arenas for much of today’s population, especially with regards to high school and college students. Networks such as Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Vine, Twitter, etc., enable users to create an identity and present it to others by allowing them to share various aspects of their lives. Because individuals select their own content, the resulting representation can be either a true or imaginative reflection of the user. The attitudes, perspectives, behaviours and actions each individual chooses to present, shape their identity within the social media universe. Like most other web-based content, the pursuit of authenticity is assumed to be at the heart of these social media networks, playing an important role in our online interactions and our decisions about what web content we believe to be reliable. But, what about when the network structure allows users to create, post, and interact with anonymous identities? Anonymity eliminates the need decipher authenticity, however, it creates an issue by protecting the negative actions of empowered users.

The inauguration of online social spaces has influenced adolescents’ identity formation and development. Surfing on social networks, teens tend to use three main kinds of online identifications; true identity that is the same offline identity, pseudonymity which refers to the use of fake names, and anonymity which means full obscurity. (Donath, 1999) online social networking sites used among adolescents include Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, blogs, interactive computer games, and chat rooms. Adolescents think that online integration and acceptance in the previously mentioned online setting to be a sign of socialization and well being. (Slagter Van Tryon & Bishop, 2009) In a study conducted by Reich’s (2010) suggests that 25% of high school students and 21% of college students have experienced problems with friendships due to activity on social networking sites. The main

“American children between eight and twelve say they spend an average of six hours a day using digital media, and those between thirteen and eighteen say they spend nine hours a day,” Goldsborough mentions (62). It is apparent that children and teenagers spend an abundant amount of their time on digital media. However, due to the fact that adolescents are spending an excessive amount of time on social media, more and more people are beginning to change their identity. The internet user may get so caught up in the virtual world, that they begin to lose sight of who they are in the real world. Thus causing a myriad of problems. Cyr acknowledges this fact by claiming that technology is causing people to change their identity. Another issue social

With the development of modern technologies, millions of individuals are constantly connected with the digital world, where some individuals may correlate social media platforms as real life. However, it is reasonable to state that due to the vulnerability of teenagers and their difficult transformations, both mentally and physically, social media could have various influences on teenagers, that including low self-esteem. Erving Goffman's dramaturgical theory can help explain how one’s identity development is framed while on these social sites as well as while offline. Using collected data, qualitative methods have shown that such things like surveys that are randomly sampled can help approach this link between social media and an individual's sense of self. Although there were no significant relations identified, results indicate that social media platforms can possibly have a negative effect on individuals sense of self.

Human beings need to feel connected with family and friends to provide us with the needed emotional support (Harris). Social media offers an easy way to stay in connected with many different types of people. We can stay connected with others regardless of where they live. It is being used in many different ways, such as socializing, exchanging ideas, sharing creativity, and collaborating with others.

According to psychologist John Suler and his idea of “The Online Disinhibition Effect”, some people, while online, self-disclose or act differently than they would

Social network sites (SNSs) such as such as Friendster, CyWorld, and MySpace allow individuals to present themselves, articulate their social networks, and establish or maintain connections with others (Ellison, 2007). These sites could be used for work related situation, romance, connecting with individuals with shared interest, or creating a connection amongst college students. Facebook enables its users to present themselves in an online profile, accumulate ‘‘friends’’ who can post comments on each other’s pages, and view each other’s profiles (Ellison, 2007). Individuals can write on the wall of friends, send private message, comment on posts, as well as chat via instant messaging. Much of the early research on online communities assumed that individuals using these systems would be connecting with others outside their pre-existing social group or location, liberating them to form communities around shared interests, as opposed to shared geography (Ellison, 2007).

More recently than in years past, digital technology and social media have grown to become a part of our everyday lives. The recent rise in those who own smartphones allows this everyday use of digital technology and social networking to be easier than ever before. At any time and any place, we have the ability to “socialize” with nearly anyone—even celebrities who have no idea most of us even exist. The continuous consumption of digital media has altered once personal face-to-face communication to just that, digital. More and more people seem to be living in what Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon call “The Cloud”. “The Cloud” is a seemingly alternate universe of which communication is altered from personal to digital. This universe has led to debates over whether or not these online communities are real or whether social media is actually social. Various digital media sources also encourage users to create individual identities, of which may or may not actually be real. It seems as though our reliance on digital technology and social media have allowed the determination of certain aspects of our lives. Although social media allows us to connect with nearly anyone at any time, Americans have taken advantage of its use, and their attention has been drawn away from real life interactions to digital ones. The ramifications of such influences reflect the hidden insecurities of Americans and, ironically, emphasize our inclination to boast about ourselves by allowing others to see the

Today’s youth generation, has a strong attachment to the online world. Many adolescents spend most of their time online versus offline. Therefore, one can consider these adolescents as a social network addict, a person who spends a fair amount of time on one or many social platforms. Throughout the three articles, “Social Networking Addiction: An Overview of Preliminary Findings” by Mark Griffiths, “Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship” by Nicole B. Ellison and “Taking Risky Opportunities in Youthful Content Creation: Teenagers’ use of Social Networking Sites for Intimacy, Privacy, and Self-expression” by Sonia Livingstone, show how this addiction has changed people’s communication among people. While there are