How Social Media Has Evolved Identity!

   6 November 2023  2 Comments on How Social Media Has Evolved Identity!  Posted in 2. ‘Medium theory’ Or ‘Construction of Identity in a digital world’, Blog

The topic of this blog post is ‘identity’ and how it is formed/constructed in the ‘digital world’, this engaging video is a kick start to the vast topic and is very helpful when trying to learn and understand the key points.

The digital world has allowed for evoltion to take place in real life society, identity is one of these things that has been evolved overtime and one of the reasons for this is social media, there are now so many different social media applications that have different uses and allow people to express their feelings and identity with various people in the online world. An advantage of this evolution is that anyone can represent their ‘identity’ in the ‘digital world’, it is now extremely easy to showcase what you would like about yourself online and this is good because you can meet new people online that have the same interests or hobbies as you, this is how communities are formed on social media platforms. For example, on Instagram there are community groups that have accounts for poetry and anybody can join these groups and meet people they didn’t know before hand and create real life relationships, communities link online and real life by bringing them together which is fascinating. However, in some cases expressing identity in the online world can also be misleading and this is because users can lie or give false information about themselves to attract a niche audience and this is a huge root cause of exploitation in some situations, this is why it is always so important that everybody remains alert and sensible when in the digital world.

Erving Goffman is a theorist who has a strong hold in the expertise of the presentation of oneself in everyday life and his theory on the difference between the representation of online identity vs offline identity is ever present in modern day society, when people join online platforms there are tendencies that are frequent in all users and this is to make sure that their online persona conforms to the standards of everyone else. Depending on the environment of the social group that you are presenting yourself to, the persona that you use will be different. For example, I will use myself in this case to bring the argument to light, I do not use the same persona/characteristics when I am communicating with my family compared to when I am talking to my friends in an online group chat and this is the main point that needs to be understood from Goffman’s theory. I would not use the same language or send the same content between the two because of how I am trying to present my identity differently, this is due to the fact that these two examples (family & friends) have completely different social values, interests and beliefs. Many people do this subconsciously every day and it shows clearly how much of an impact digitalization has had on certain human characteristics such as identity. 

To finish this blog post, I would just like to highlight that the construction of ‘identity’ has most definitely become available online in the ‘digital world’, whether this is a good or bad thing for society is utterly subjective depending on the way you use the online world but as time goes on there is one thing that is certain and this is that with the ‘digital world’, evolution is inevitable. 

References:

YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIuJT1n2vRY

Instagram Image: https://about.fb.com/news/2022/12/sharing-features-on-instagram-notes-group-profiles-and-more/

Erving Goffman Image: https://www.thoughtco.com/erving-goffman-3026489

Featured Image: https://fully-verified.com/how-could-identity-verification-function-in-social-media/

2 thoughts on “How Social Media Has Evolved Identity!”

  1. I love this post, brings the topic together and it’s straight to the point. You mention the digital side of identity and bring in real life examples of social media. You have spoken about the theorist behind it which is great. Only you didn’t mention exactly what his theory was. Having that would have made it more adequate. Maybe adding a little bit more on how you associate your identity in general and not just digitally because I’ve seen that you’ve only added it towards the end here. Other than that, great post!

  2. I think your headline is very catchy, and relatable. The fact that you compared it to modern day in regards to social media is also a good point because it draws more people’s attention and lets them feel that they can relate to this post.

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