# To what extent does online identity, created through social media interactions, represent real life identity?
## Introduction

In this collaborative essay, we will be researching the way people identify themselves online. Often, it is argued that an individual represents themselves differently online than how they are in reality 'offline'. As a group, we have investigated whether or not this statement is true and what areas might contribute to a person changing their identity online and why? As this issue has continued to grow, due to advancing technology, numerous of academics have researched this, supporting our group research into the topic. Through this process, we have been able to highlight that due to self-esteem, people from all ages have created an online identity to better themselves.

## Main Concepts
### Identity in New Environments

Often in new situations where there are few individuals we know, people feel the pressure to represent themselves differently online than they are in person. Often, online behaviour on social media can be different to how it was back in familiar ‘home’ environments with familiar people. Social media websites can be used to maintain as well as build new relationships, especially during transitional times such as moving to a new area. Often, there is an anxiety caused by the social expectation to present ourselves in a positive way online to new people, especially in important times of change. There is limited research into how individuals change their identity and self-perception on social media as identified by Thomas et al (2017)
University transitioning through social media.
In response to this limited research, Thomas et al conducted a study specifically observing new university students aged 18-22 and their use of social media to create new social groupings. In addition, the study observed social media use before, during and after the first transitional stages of moving to university to highlight any changes in self-presentation or behaviour online.
The researchers took twenty-five students going into first year. The participants were asked to log their social media activity on Pinterest, creating 6 pinboards; the first covering the week before university, second during freshers week, third during the first week of lectures and the fourth, fifth and sixth through the following weeks of lectures. After logging their activity, the participants were then interviewed about their use of social media and their changes in behaviour for additional detail.
Findings
The stage before moving to university, participants of the study used social media to ‘affirm’ their home relationships and identity. Even once the students had settled into university, contact with friends at home and family was still an important part to play in maintaining their ‘home’ identity (Thomas et al., 2017). Identity therefore was partly still tied to a place and with family, as touched on by Lingel et al.(2014) who conducted research on identity ties with people who had moved to New York. They found that Facebook was essential for most participants to uphold relationships with family and friends abroad and maintain cultural identity, similar to how Thomas et al. highlight how social media was used by new university students to maintain ‘home’ relationships. Social media was also useful for individuals to identity and familiarize themselves with flatmates and those on the same academic course, growing their student identity. Even the seemingly simple status change to university student on Facebook helped participants felt more grounded in their official new identity role as a student.
Thomas et al. also found that participants did edit their social media accounts and the way they presented themselves to new individuals online. For example, a participant recalled, "I remember I spent a day when I just came to university where I deleted all the photos that I'm not pretty in...I do care how I come across, especially to new people at uni.” In addition, another participant had deleted an ‘ugly’ photo of herself before moving to university, explaining how “they might make a judgment of you before they even get a chance to meet you.”
Therefore, there is empirical evidence highlighting how individuals change and edit the way they represent themselves online differently to how they are offline. To sum up this research, Yolanda, a participant highlighted, "We want to paint this perfect picture of our life online, because it's not so perfect in the real world. So we feel the need to show-off online to cover up the not so perfect life away from social media."
In conclusion to this section, in transitional times, individuals often represented themselves differently online to portray a filtered and positive version of themselves. Deumert (2014) discusses the theory of Paul Ricoeur (1992) and how we construct ourselves through how we speak, act, what things we are interested in and other elements of our identity (p.24). We portray a positive 'persona' that can make us feel good about ourselves (Ricoeur, 1992). Through the research that Thomas et al conducted, we can see how Ricoeur's theory applies to social media and online identity. Participants censored the way they spoke as well as filtered what others saw. This also relates to the issues of narcissism and the research of Scholz et al (2017) who highlighted “positive self-image is an important goal in social interactions", which will be discussed in depth later. Digital narcissism is common with higher education students due to the pressure to come across in a positive light with new people online (Mendelson & Paracharissi, 2011). Often, we judge and feel judged by others online and so want to portray our lives as busy and always fun, when in reality this is very unrealistic. This also links to Abiala and Herwall's second theme of online identity: peer culture and recognition (2013). The culture of fresher's week for university students was a key time for students to get a sense of what it is to be a student and establish new friendships and recognize each other's shared new experience. This concept will also be expanded later in this essay.

### Online Narcissism

An individual’s portrayed online identity is built by many potentially ‘narcissistic’ decisions, according to Scholz et al (2017). This study focused on the sharing habits of those on social media, by investigating neurological connections made by the participants, some of which are narcissistic, which I will explain further in a moment. To conduct the study, the investigators gave each participant a series of New York Times articles and asked whether they were likely to share these articles online. Using a previously established framework, they logged the decisions and studied them. Their findings discovered that the articles that had already gone ‘viral’ were more likely to be shared, and from this, they drew some interesting conclusions. Scholz et al raise the question of whether our online self is our true self: “the promotion of a positive self-image is an important goal in social interactions, and information that allows potential sharers to appear in a more positive light is more likely to go viral, perhaps because it increases the perceived value of information sharing.<” This suggests that people don’t necessarily share articles because they feel strongly about the issue raised, for example, but potentially because it makes them look better in the eyes of their ‘friends’ on social media. Social media is a platform which can allow users to present themselves in a fashion they so desire, and sharing articles boosts this ‘self-enhancement’ and ‘self-promotion'.

### What Lies Behind the Avatar?

As well as ‘self-promotion’ on platforms such as social media (Scholz et al, 2005), Harrell & Chong-U (2017) argue that avatars in gaming and online provide further space for online (mis)identification, and this is backed by Suler’s (2005) study of ‘dissociating’ ourselves online from real-life. In their article, Harrell & Chong-U provide in-depth discussion of pre-set categories for avatar customisation in games, such as the character’s race, height and strength levels. They noted that in games such as ‘The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion’ (2013) that customisation was often gendered, i.e. some female characteristics were lower than male characteristics when different character prototypes were chosen. Interestingly, Harrell & Chong-U draw connections to ‘box-effects’, which according to the article include stereotypes, social biases and discrimination, from both our own individual characterisation of our avatar but also of the pre-set conditions. To better integrate subcultures online, the researchers studied social media fandom by associating participants with others with a similar musical taste, as chosen by their preferences on a virtual platform created by the researchers. Moreover, they also studied users’ choices when faced with tasks which allow for loss of self: for example, in an AI-system, the researchers crafted a system which meant that the participants had to ‘pretend to be something [they’re] not’ in order to be accepted into a castle.
When contextualised by ‘The online disinhibition effect’ (Suler, 2005), these findings provide further interest in terms of self-representation online, and how far from reality it may actually be. ‘When people have the opportunity to detach their actions online from their in-person lifestyle and identity, they feel less vulnerable about self-disclosing or acting out. They don’t have to own their behavior by acknowledging it within the full context of an integrated online or offline identity. The online self becomes a compartmentalized self, a dissociated self. In the case of expressed hostilities or other deviant acts, the person can evade responsibility, almost as if superego restrictions have been temporarily suspended from the online psyche. In fact, people might even convince themselves that those online behaviors “aren’t me at all.”’ This raises questions as to whether our avatar creation is a projection of our potential ‘ideal’ self; the avatar may have features we wish we had, and so on. This also highlights our online identity on social media platforms. Although we are named on social media, Suler argues that we act under ‘the influence of anonymity’, in that we project a self that often we would not be comfortable projecting in the real world: ‘the person may attempt an invisible non-identity, resulting in a reduced or compacted expression of self. In dissociative imagination, the expressed but split-off self may evolve into a complex structure.’ This indicated that our online representation, regardless of how flawed it may be, can become an extension of ourselves where we are free to express what we like whilst also being somewhat anonymous.

## Challenging Anonymity

Continuing with the concept of online anonymity and dissociation (Kennedy, 2006) examines the concept of anonymity. She argues there is a difference between feeling and being anonymous and to understand people’s reasoning behind their level of anonymity cultural studies must be taken in to account. The case study Kennedy uses is internet use research which was taken part by ethnic minority women in the UK during the late 1990's, the women used a computer program named Her@ where they could distant learn and communicate through their own home page.
The study showed that many of the women felt anonymous as they refrained from entering details that would signify who they were. However, they shared many pieces of personal information and stories about their background and home life. Reiterating the difference between feeling anonymous and being anonymous. To some extent in the Her@ research represents their real-life identity as the woman were able to discuss social and cultural issues and aspects of their life such as their gender, ethnicity and economic background. Therefore, they are representing specific aspects of their life through blog posts and can chat to other people about similar issues. For example, one woman posted a Trinidadian flag and pictures of Caribbean food, showing aspects of her identity.
However, it is seen that the woman expressed various levels of sharing and the feeling of anonymity had some influence in how they interacted with the web pages. One of the woman said, ‘I felt it was difficult to incorporate the “right” image of myself, an image I wanted the rest of the world to see and like.’ Therefore, showing there is a level of narcissism involved in how this woman portrays herself online and that she has constructed an image of her identity that she thinks will be more appealing to the people reading her page. This means that having the option to be anonymous gives online users the power to make an online identity that is construction rather than an extension of their real-life identity. Moreover, (Qian & Scott 2007) also agree with Kennedy that looking in to cultural studies as well as people’s background is important when examining online identity “Such differences may be partly explained by individual differences in personality or temperament (e.g., some bloggers are more open and forthcoming than others).” Showing how there are differences in people’s portrayal of themselves based on their personality for example narcissism which has been mentioned previously.
In addition, Qian and Scott note that 70% of all blogs are personal journals, as these journals are posted publicly for anyone to view they are social writings. Their article examines these blogs to find out how anonymity influences disclosure and how much personal information people are willing to share. In the survey conducted by questioning bloggers most them have either pseudonym (27.1%) or only partially their real name (30%) with only 12.6% of the bloggers disclosing their real name. Showing they would rather post their online content with some level of anonymity, showing confidence being associated around anonymity as they prefer the content they post to be detached from their real identity. Furthermore, another finding showed when asked what their concerns were with their identity being shown 23% answered ‘Family members may read the blog’ whereas only 8.04% answered ‘may damage one’s career.’ Therefore, showing a correlation between social judgment and feeling vulnerable at the thought of people in real life (family) seeing their posts. This means aspects of personal information are suitable to be publicly posted however not to be found by people in their lives. Showing that anonymity can easily be used to separate identity online to offline.

### Folklore Online

This idea of anonymity links in with the notable part ‘folklore’, spoke of during a study conducted by Kristina Abiala and Patrik Hernwall (2013) which took place in Sweden. It involved children aged 10-14 years old, to examine the way they used online identity. The part about ‘folklore’, highlights the older boys, who were involved in the study used anonymous names to keep their online identity private; especially for pornography. Abiala and Herwall (2013), use this example to help echo that gender differences are increased by age.The research was conducted of a total 94 children. 45 girls, 48 boys, and one who’s gender was not disclosed. 21 in total the age of ten, 22 aged 12, and 51 aged 14. Who had to write a short story, which were analysed using a method influenced by ‘grounded theory’. The results were presented and discussed in terms of gender, sexuality, peer culture and folklore online, culminating in ones ‘body-self’. In addition, the research found, one of the main online activities is to log in to and spend time at online communities, a pastime that increases with age but is more frequent among girls than boys (Medieradet 2010). Online communities are of different character and trends and peer culture defines what is hot and what’s not. Many of the informants pay most attention to Facebook, whereas before they would have spent most of their time on “popular communities” such as Playahead or Lunastorm, which were now considered ‘childish’ and ‘outdated’. Therefore, Abiala and Herwall (2013) highlight three main themes of online identity. 1. Gender and sexuality; 2. Peer culture and recognition 3. Online folklore- “One dimension of the Internet being appropriated in peer culture is the flourishing of technology-related folklore. The shared experiences of young people tend to build a certain pattern that has value or the group and also helps its members to form a common identity, building upon such elements as age, gender, sexuality and ethnicity.” Thus, Abiala and Herwall’s (2013) understanding of online identity has only three main themes; which is more apparent with age. However, though this may be the case for ‘tweens’ aged 10-14, the gap of differences tends to close in the lateral teenage years.
Which is shown by the research of Özgüven and Mucan who uses the participation of students aged between 18-25yo from the faculty of Economics and Administrative sciences at Dokuz Eylul Univeristy, Turkey. 580 questionnaires were distributed, and 503 valid questionnaires were returned. Therefore, 87% return rate. Moreover, their research concentrates on personality traits, rather than the themes that Abiala and Herwall (2013) concentrated on. By referencing (Goldberg, 1981) Özgüven and Mucan found "The factors that define personality are as follows...Neuroticism is defined as an individual's tendency to experience unpleasant emotions and expect bad hings to happen to them. Extraversion is defined as an individual's tendency to express himself/herself socially in an outgoing manner. Openness to experience is defined as the appreciation of alternative perspectives, intellectual curiosity, and the desire of artistic pleasure. Agreeableness which is defined as a tendency to be reliable, sympathetic, and cooperative. Conscientiousness is defined as a tendency to plan ahead and be diligent and fair (Ross et al., 2009). The Big-Five had been in common us in exploratory research across diverse setting and cultures for almost a decade now (McCrae & Costa, 2004)." Their conclusion found: "personality traits play a vital role in determining the level of social media use. Conscientiousness, openness to experience and life satisfaction were found to be significant predictions of the amount of social media us, as were levels of income and education.
Therefore, through Abiala and Hernwall’s (2013) study we see the main themes that is used to identify 10-14 year olds ‘body-self’, which is compared to the personality traits used by Özgüven and Mucan. Thus, through different research methods; we are able to determine that there will always be different factors used to determine people’s online identities.

## Conclusion

Overall, it is clear that online identity differs from our real life everyday identity. However, our interactions online can also reaffirm our identity and who we are. The way university students kept in contact with family and friends back home affirmed their 'home' identities where they grew up. Social interactions online can also help students to feel integrated into student life and community, strengthening their real-life status as a student. However, the pressure to present themselves to new people online causes many students to edit the way they behaviour and portray themselves online. Whether that be by deleting 'ugly' photos of themselves to look happier and more favorable, or whether it be through filtering how they speak and interact with people so they come across positively. Narcissistic decision making also denotes our online representation, promoting a distinction between our online self and real self. This is particularly evident through our sharing habits online, as Scholz et al (2017) found. Online (mis)identification is also present in avatar creation on online gaming platforms, where customisation of character traits is possible, allowing for further dissociation from our real life self. Furthermore this dissociation has also been shown by the use of Anonymity which allows people to control how much of an identity the want to build and therefore create a structured version of themselves instead of one that reflects reality.Therefore, to a limited extent, our online identity created through social media interaction do represent our real life identity. However, there are often many changes that we can control online that differs from our everyday real-life identity.
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## References

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* ↑ Lingel, J., Naaman, M., Boyd, D. (2014). City, Self, Network: Transnational Migrants and Online Identity Work. CSCQ ’14 Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on computer supported cooperative work and social computing. 1502-1510. DOI: 10.1145/2531602.2531693
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* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Scholz, C., Baek, E. C., O’Donnell, M. B., Kim, H. S., Cappella, J. N. & Falk, E.B. 2017. Neuroscience, valuation and virality. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1615259114
* ↑ Mendelson, A., & Papacharissi, Z. (2011). Look At Us: Collective Narcissism in College Student Facebook Photo Galleries. In Z. Papacharissi, A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites (1st ed., pp. 251-274). New York: Routledge.
* ↑ Abiala, K., & Hernwall, P. (2013). Tweens negotiating identity online – Swedish girls' and boys' reflections on online experiences. Journal Of Youth Studies, 16(8), 951-969. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2013.780124
* 1 2 3 4 Harrell, D. F. & Chong-U, L. 2017. Reimagining The Avatar Dream: Modeling Social Identity in Digital Media. Communications of the ACM, 60 (7). Pp. 50-61. DOI: 10.1145/3098342.
* 1 2 3 4 Suler, J. (2005). The online disinhibition effect. International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 2(2), 184-188. Doi: 10.1002/aps.42
* 1 2 3 4 Kennedy, H. (2006). Beyond anonymity, or future directions for internet identity research. In S. Thornham, C. Bassett & P. Marris (Eds.), Media studies: A reader (3rd ed., pp. 839). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press
* 1 2 3 4 5 Qian, H., & Scott R. Craig. (2007). Anonymity and self-disclosure on weblogs. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12(4), 1428.
* 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Abiala, K., & Hernwall, P. (2013). Tweens negotiating identity online – Swedish girls' and boys' reflections on online experiences. Journal Of Youth Studies, 16(8), 951-969. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2013.780124
* 1 2 3 4 .ÖZGÜVEN, N., Mucan, B, "Behavior & Personality: an international journal 2013, Vol. 41 Issue 3, p517