Social Media and Identity Development and Management in the Contemporary World (Essay Sample)

Social Media and Identity Development and Management in the Contemporary World Student Name University Course Professor Name Date Social Media and Identity Development and Management in the Contemporary World In the modern world, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter among others are platforms changing the ways of the subject’s formation and identification. According to Turkle (2011), the online platform can be seen as a new arena for performing an identity, this means that in the Internet people can put up different aspects of themselves and navigate different aspects of their personalities that maybe can’t be done offline. In essence, social media allows the user to select what to contribute, how to contribute it, and to whom, which results in a rather intricate process of identity construction. In the context of Boyd (2014), these social media support a liminal style of existence, where clients switch between multiple selves based on the context. This multiplicity enables an individual fully develop or discover the various features within them and hence be useful in fostering growth. However, social media can also place several pressures and expectations regarding the formation of an individual’s identity. The perspective of social comparison mentioned by Vogel et al. (2014) also unveils the fact that users commonly compare themselves to others’ filtered lives, which puts pressure on self-esteem. Validation and vulnerability may both be forms of acceptance; and since people may reject those with undesirable characteristics or perceived abnormalities in order to remain part of the group or to gain entry, people’s self- presentations may be changed because of such social pressures. Thus, it can be concluded that identity formation in the context of the given digital environment is a complex and nuanced process affected by social networking sites. These actors state that, while social media outlets provide a certain level of freedom for people to experiment wit...