Why Do People Create False Identities And What Are Its Outcomes?

Rachel Ehmke addresses the negative effects of social media in a strident, yet true, way. The use of social media among teens in America is 75 percent and out of that percentage 68 percent use Facebook more than any other site or app (Common Sense Media, as cited by Ramasubbu, 2016, p.1). According to Suren Ramasubbu in his article “Influence of Social Media on Teenagers”, Facebook is an outlet for depression, sexting, and cyberbullying (2016, p.1). Ehmke points these effects as well to support her opinion along with other effects like indirect communication, loss of experiences, the imposter syndrome, and stalking. It can be concluded that the reasons provided by Ehmke are valid reasons to prove why social media can affect a person negatively.

How many Facebook friends do you have, and how many of those friends have you spoken to in the past week, month, or even year? Are there any people that you follow on Instagram whom you’ve never introduced yourself to? The answers may come as a surprise. The use of social media makes it effortless to connect with friends and family. However, it also allows us to to catch a glimpse the lives of those we’re never met. Depending on how much information is shared on one’s profile, it can allow a person to determine enough about them to consider them a friend. Conversely, those people who have never met you have access to all of your information that you allow “friends” on Facebook to see. This is an alarming discovery, especially considering that the concept of “catfishing” (creating a fake profile online and pretending to be someone

Online predators and Stalkers can easily gain access to social media users’ personal information by either requesting to be a user’s friend or simply finding a way around the user's privacy settings. According to June Ahn, chat rooms are public and is an unmonitored space where online predators are more likely to be. “Adolescents are less likely to be targeted for unwanted sexual solicitation in social media than chat rooms.”(Ahn, June) I have found that, 412 adolescents were more likely to talk with strangers. This is hazardous for young children and adolescents because their lack of life experience leads them to blindly accept all friend request. The effort to seem popular by having many friends online can damage credibility and truth worthiness.

Social media is causing problems towards finding people and trying to make them their friend, which is creating fake people. Dating sites, Instagram, Snapchat, and many other social sites can have people hide themselves and say their someone they aren't to lure in victims to sex trafficking. Said by safety sites, a sex trafficker can be anyone you know, it could be anyone in your community, they target younger, in terms of social media, because they aren't as smart and could be depressed or vulnerable and need someone there for them. They talk to these victims through a relationship, to hope to meet in person and do what they set out for from the start. They scout who they are looking for, then they promise things in the relationship, manipulate, and then trap whoever they are out after [Internet Safety 101]. Social media also brung in the idea of providing information on where all your “friends” are on some sites or apps so you know exactly where they are. Snapchat has introduced a bit ago the feature to be able to see where someone is based on the last time they were on Snapchat, and for some people, someone could basically track them. The problem these days have people really worry about who is around and doesn't let anyone see some accounts, so put them on private, because there's to

Social media is very deceiving because of all the things and information the social media companies like Facebook

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

As technology surrounding the internet has grown there has a been a new movement to connect the world. Specifically, teens have become more inclined to socialize and connect with friends, family, and strangers through the internet. Teenagers are known for being vulnerable, naïve, having a vast desire to find acceptance with their peers or society and are obsessed with love. With the connection of the internet, social media, and teen it has created completely new moral panic; catfishing. According to, to Merriam-Webster catfishing is defined as an individual who creates a fake profile on a social networking site to deceive or manipulate others ("Catfish"). Primarily, those who catfish use their fake profiles to gain romantic relationships with other social network users. Teens began creating fake profiles through their instinct of wanting to fit in but, this led to teens catfishing to fulfill their dreams of finding acceptance. Catfishing is an internet moral panic because it is considered a social terror. The act of catfishing became a way for some teens to find acceptance but, parents feel that teens are not safe on social networking sites such as; Facebook because these deceptions can cause teens emotional and mental harm. Those constructing the moral panic continually scapegoated social network sites for the creation of catfishing and its side effects but, the true root cause of catfishing is teen’s inherent behavior.

The above mentioned example is one of many questioning the credibility of the social networking sites. The fact that anyone can go to a person’s profile and save his/her picture to be used as desired is uncomfortable and disturbing. Another method for the disruption of ethical boundaries in regards to these networking channels is their utilization to conduct predatory marketing. The level of discomfort is high when a product/service is offered to a user on the basis of the needs assessment done by the exploitation of personal information. Some employers are also the culprits due to the fact that they make hiring decisions on the basis of prospective employee’s social network activities. These and many other scenarios lead problem solvers to come up with alternatives and implement productive decisions.

In 2006, Megan Meier, a Missouri teen, committed suicide after a fake account made by an adult male befriended her on Facebook, initiated a relationship, and broke up with her (Hawkins). There are many cases similar to this where people change their identity online to accomplish goals. Megan was involved in a “Catfish” where the befriended profile formed a relationship under a false name. These are possibly the most common crime when it comes to changing your identity. There is even

A social networking website is made popular by a technologically inclined culture which populates the website and has a need to be social online; although not everyone wants to jump on this platform of communication. As the amount of people using a particular social networking website increases, so too will the website's popularity and it’s value in the marketplace resulting in attracting a greater share of the population. Consequently utilizing a domino effect technique. The people who populate the site will become popular at greater levels as they increase their friend base due to the current way Facebook and now Google+ links friends that are a degree or two away. Facebook constantly reminds a user of “People You May Know” even if you don't, but maybe someone in your current circle or association of current friends do. The whole concept of a social networking website is based on popularity so it is no mystery as to why people who use it get the idea to do a “online self-presentation,”(Mehdizadeh 357). A presentation that can be totally honest only including their close friends and family(people who know them best) or one that can be narcissistic in nature where a

Since the introduction of the World Wide Web and mainstream use of the internet to access information in 1990, the way people interact with each other has changed. Social media has opened up new mediums for people to communicate with each other. People exchange messages on Facebook, post tweets on Twitter, and “selfies” on Instagram. These new mediums have also changed the way people find romance and love. In this modern era, it is not uncommon to see people dating other people they have met on the internet. This has opened the door for “catfishing”, lying about your true identity on the internet in order to lure someone into a relationship. This has become so common that Molly McHugh of digitaltrends.com4 has described it as an epidemic. This essay will explore how catfishing has developed with the introduction of social media, why people catfish, and why talking over the internet makes it difficult to spot when someone is presenting a false identity. It will also identify the impacts that catfishing has had on society.

The internet was invented roughly about 30 years ago by the World Wide Web. However, the first social media came out circa 20 years ago. The name of it was Six Degrees and it was created by Andrew Weinreich in the 1900’s. Six degrees users had the capabilities of uploading a profile, making friends, and sending messages with family and friends. Nevertheless on 2004, Facebook was created by Mark Zuckerberg, a 19-year-old who created the biggest social media that changed the world. Till this day, Facebook probably has up to 2 billion users and still counting. Nonetheless, most people seen on Facebook ranges from their teens to mid-40s, that have the capability of spreading information across the globe setting a chain reaction that created and spread fake news. Social medias’ fake news is spread by a heap of people that are easily convinced by false statements. According to Gretel, “In the midst of a nationwide debate over the proliferation of fake news on social media sites – and, as one 2015 study by the Media Insight Project shows, at a time when nearly 9 in 10 Millennials regularly get news from Facebook – the numbers, at first glance, may point to a bleak, uninformed future.” (n. pag.) Therefore, teens need to use social media to disintegrate some of the repercussions of real news.

Just as there are positive effects of social media, there are also negative effects as well. False connections are often made on SNS. Ninety percent of students have Facebook which is constructed to be socially shared with any user. It may seem obvious that users of social networking cannot stray far from reality from his or her online identity, although the users can depict what he or she wishes to display (Moreno et al. 452). There are many young teenagers on social networking websites posting true personal information, but there are also many young teenagers who false information. In fact, many young users of social networking, especially boys, give false information (Moreno et al. 251). Manipulation can occur in order for young users to join that network. Many times younger users have to lie about his or her age which is not always approved by his or her parents (Moreno et al. 253). A survey was done from children ranging from eight years old to twelve years old to provide the results that those who lied about their age did so within a four year range of their actual age. Thus, they knew they had to use false information, so they provided it with care (Moreno et al. 256). Because of the easiness to create an account falsely, it also makes it simpler to deceive one another. Deception is used to attack another user potentially causing upsetting consequences. The deception taking place online from networking is typically used to mislead others (Tsikerdekis and

There are dangers of online communication such as social networks where users can lie about who they are [4]“Megan thought she was being abused by 16-year-old Josh Evans, she was actually talking to Lori Drew, the 49-year-old mother of one of her former friends who, it is alleged, had set up a fake profile to taunt Megan.” in social networking sites it is very easy for people to