Social Media and Identity: A Question of form vs. function?
Welcome back!
Last week had a brief look at what social media involves and how it’s constructed.
Today we’re going to be looking at what function it serves in relation to sociality and more importantly, our identity.
How do we use it? Why do we rely on it? Is it a tool or a threat to our upbringing?
At this stage we’ve established that social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have become a place for users to “showcase” their lives, with the intention of sharing it with others.
As discussed in our previous blog, it comes to no surprise that digital networking has gained more importance and credibility in today’s world. This has comparatively made a deeper impact on society when compared to traditional methods of communication. Although the form of the media has changed, so has the function.
In his Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, Gündüz Uğur (2017) explains how what we show online;
“reflects a variety of dimensions regarding our position in the virtual and physical social life. Both of these factors make people play certain characters in the social arena”.
His metaphorical reference to an arena really emphasizes the underlying competitive environment that has grown from such online social platforms.
Social media enables identity expression. Individuals are given the opportunity to make use of social agencies to interact and “feed” the platform with information about themselves and others.
The persona we present online can be represented as a puzzle made up of carefully selected pieces of ourselves that are curated in a way to that we would like to be perceived by others.
Let’s use a made-up scenario as an example:
Let’s say I go to the beach with a friend of mine, and while there I order a nice piña colada to enjoy on my deckchair in the sun.
That situation alone can be reinterpreted in so many ways just by the choice of how I choose to compose the image on my Instagram story. I could choose to ask my friend to take the photo of me pretending to laugh (almost as if my cocktail made a joke), or I could show both our drinks in the picture to be mysterious about who I went to the beach with. The possibilities and complexities of these things are endless.
Because in this day and age, did you really go to the beach unless you posted a boomerang about it?
Same question goes with people who go to the gym just for the sake of taking a mirror selfie there, or ordering the drink on Starbucks that has the logo on the front just so that I can post about it - I don’t even like pumpkin spice … but hey, it’s for the Gram!
It’s about associating with a certain culture and doing whatever it takes to fit in and do the mainstream thing … because that’s what’s in right now!
This idea of a ‘build a bear’ style ‘pick and choose’ can allow for deception and miscommunication — a simple example would be for someone to not use their real name when creating a profile. These topics will be further discussed in our future blog posts!
Until then … think twice about waiting for your meal to get cold just so that you can pick the perfect angle and filter to go with that snapchat story. There’s more to life than cold BBQ steak, and it definitely won’t come through your phone screen!
Reference: Gündüz Uğur, 2017. “The Effect of Social Media on Identity Construction,” Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, Sciendo, vol. 8(5), pages 85–92, September.
This blog is part of a project for Study Unit DGA3008, University of Malta
