Understanding the Self

Chapter 9

The Digital Self

Chapter 9

The Digital Self

Introduction
This chapter aims to identify the factors that affect our online identity, presentation, and
impression, identify the impact of online interactions on the Self, and recognize and apply
boundaries in the presentation of the Self online. The knowledge, skills, and insights that students
would gain from this course may be used in their academic endeavors, their chosen disciplines,
and their future careers as they understand their self and identity.

Specific Objectives
At the end of the lesson, the students should be able to:

● Identify the factors that affect our online identity, presentation, and impression;
● Identify the impact of online interactions on the Self; and
● Recognize and apply boundaries in the presentation of the Self online.

Duration

Chapter 9: The Digital Self = 3 hours

(1 1/2 hours discussion; 1 1/2
hours assessment)

Lesson Proper

Understanding and Creating your Digital Self

The idea of the digital self-developed from the original phenomenon of the ‘extended self’,
pioneered by Russell Belk in 1988. He believed our possessions are a major contributor to and
reflection of our identities. Back in the day, it was external objects, such as clothes, jewellery and
cars etc. that he believed we used and considered as part of ourselves. Think about it, could you
live without your smartphone or laptop? (Be honest…)
Nowadays however, it isn’t merely tangible belongings that researchers consider as part of our
extended self. Our digital possessions such as photos, videos, statuses, texts, and emails are now
seen to be significantly important to shaping our digital self.
The idea of the Digital Self is an interesting and relatively new topic discussed in consumer
behaviour research. Researchers, such as Stone (1996) and Hemetsburger (2005) claim that the
digital web allows us to try out different personas that differ from our real life identities. But why
would we want to even do this? We were especially interested in looking at why we express
ourselves online the way we do and we wanted to share the most common reasons:
 ● We want to meet the expectation of others: research shows over 50% of women
would edit their social media photos to look better and meet the expectations that the
media and magazines have set
● We want to boost our self-esteem: people upload photos and statuses online that
they feel will receive ‘likes’ and positive feedback in which ultimately helps their egos
● To feel a sense of belonging: Some of us want to fit in with the crowd and upload
things that are ‘down with the trend’ - for instance, who notices the amount of people
posting pictures of their food increasing? It didn’t come from nowhere.
● Bigger sense of freedom: Unlike real life, digital platforms allow us to express
ourselves in any way we want to without anyone there to physically judge us
● Striving to be our ideal selves: Digital Apps, such as Facetune, that allow us to
improve our appearances on photos (through teeth whitening, skin smoothing and body
shape editing) helps consumers to express as their ‘ideal’ self-online and inevitably feel
better about themselves

In conclusion, the digital world has provided us with greater opportunities to express our
identity in any form we want to. But what we all need to remember is: how will we feel if we go
so far to express ourselves differently online that we forget what reality is, or worse, we end up
resenting it?

I. Online Disinhibition Effect

When people adopt fake identities, they are likely to engage in behaviors that they would not
do in real life interactions, known as online disinhibition.
There are 2 main categories of behaviors that fall under online disinhibition:
1. Benign disinhibition. It occurs when people tend to self-disclose more on the internet
than they would in real life or go out of their way to help someone or show kindness.
2. Toxic disinhibition. People take part of this when they use rude language, bully or
threaten others on online platforms, and go to websites with contents of violence, crime,
and pornography.

II. The Digital Self: How Social Media Serves as a Setting that Shapes Youth’s Emotional
Experience
Paper by: Megan A. Wood, William M. Bukowski, & Eric Lis
(from: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40894-015-0014-8#citeas)

Abstract:

Social media is a term for numerous technologies that allow instantaneous communication,
status updates, and social networking among individuals. Social media platforms today include
text messaging via cellular phones and social networking sites such as Facebook. The use of social
media by youth (preadolescents and adolescents) continues to increase across the world on a yearly
basis. Youth in nearly every country use social media to maintain nearly constant contact with
their friends. Given the importance of both social media and friendships to youth, this review
examines the impact of social media on the emotional experiences of youth. Social media can have
a positive impact upon loneliness, intimacy, and relationship maintenance during adolescence.
However, adolescents also experience relational issues via social media and are more reckless
online. Social media, particularly Facebook, may have both a positive and a negative impact on
mood symptoms and other mental disorders. Social media may play a role in identity formation
by allowing younger users to experiment with different behaviors and interactional styles. The
effects of social media may lead to more positive outcomes for boys than for girls. There is need
for research on social media use during preadolescence, since work is largely conducted with
adolescents, and for further research to be conducted with potential mediators between social
media and well-being (e.g., friendship).

Positive Impact of Social-Media on the Youth

There are several known positive consequences for young people who engage regularly with
social media. Benefits include the enhancement of social contact, independence, and
communication (Ito et al. 2008) as well as a sense of emotional connection with others (Reich
2010). Valkenburg and Peter (2007c) reported that preadolescents and adolescents interact online
mainly to remain connected with their existing friends (88 %) (see also Creasy 2013; Pempek et
al. 2009). Additionally, preadolescents and adolescents who communicate with friends on the
Internet feel closer to their existing friends (Valkenburg and Peter 2007c). In fact, Yang and Brown
(2013) found that self-reported levels of loneliness are lower and that social adjustment is higher
for late adolescents who use Facebook in order to maintain relationships while transitioning to
college. Similarly, some report that college students’ loneliness decreases with increased Facebook
use (Lou et al. 2012). Jordán-Conde et al. (2014) found that late adolescents frequently use
Facebook to communicate intimate topics with their friends, although adolescent populations do
not appear to use Facebook to form romantic relationships (Moreau et al. 2012). Moreover,
Valkenburg and Peter (2009a) formulated “the Internet enhanced self-disclosure hypothesis,”
which argues that increased social connectedness and well-being, which are often experienced by
adolescents via using the Internet, results from heightened self-disclosure. These authors found
support for their claim in a longitudinal study which demonstrated that instant messaging increases
friendship quality for adolescents due to intimate online self-disclosure (Valkenburg and Peter
2009b). Ito et al. (2008) found that youth tend to use social media to gather information and to
connect with others who share their interests. It appears that communicating online allows people
to enhance existing relationships as well as foster new ones with similar people that they may not
encounter day to day.

Moreover, adolescents are motivated to use online communication for companionship (Gross
et al. 2002) and to maintain their relationships (Jordán-Conde et al. 2014). Dolev-Cohen and Barak
(2013) also suggest that instant messaging, which involves sending electronic messages back and
forth in an online conversation, can contribute to the well-being of adolescents who are distressed
by providing an outlet for their emotions. In their study, instant messaging was found to result in
improvements to one’s emotional state such that adolescents experience emotional relief following
such conversations with their peers. Similarly, Valkenburg and Peter (2011) report that friendship
formation and quality are enhanced by online communication. Despite these strong ties to Internet
communication, Kearney (2013) reported that adolescents do not perceive their interactions on
Facebook as providing the same level of friendship quality as the relations they experience face-
to-face, indicating that in-person communication is not threatened by SNS use. Clearly, using the
Internet for communication purposes has numerous benefits for the emotional well-being of youth.

Aside from the social benefits, the potential educational benefits of social media should not be
forgotten. Public health organizations have published data on successful use of social media as a
way of reaching their target populations (e.g., Kornfield et al. 2015). Particularly for younger
children, there is evidence that “safe and secure online communication” can teach understanding
of and positive attitudes towards other cultures and foster learning about the world and
multiculturalism (Hou et al. 2015).

Negative Impact of Social Media on the Youth

Steeves (2014) found that creative uses of social media (e.g., homemade videos, sharing
artwork) are uncommon on a daily or weekly basis (4–9 %) and that social media is typically used
for communication with friends and entertainment consumption (e.g., online games at 59 %).
Additionally, many adolescents report negative relational experiences via social media. For
example, adolescents experience online meanness and bullying (“cyber-bullying”) (52 %),
misunderstandings (7 %), unwanted contact (23 %), and unintentional disclosure (17 %) while
using social networking websites (Christofides et al. 2012). Although youth predominantly
communicate with their existing friends online, adolescents are more likely than adults to add
“friends” to Facebook who they do not know or like (Christofides et al. 2011). This finding
indicates that youth are more careless about who they interact with online than older individuals.
Taken together, it is evident that there are risks present for young people who use social media.

Much of the research on the negative consequences of social media use has focused on
depressed affect. For example, it has been reported that troubled adolescents (i.e., those
experiencing victimization and depression) form closer online relationships than other adolescents,
which suggests that online relationships may attract more socially and emotionally vulnerable
adolescents (Wolak et al. 2003).

There is also a phenomenon called “Facebook depression”. “Facebook depression” describes a

situation where individuals become depressed due to Facebook use (Jelenchick et al. 2013) or, due
to being rewarded with attention from close others when they post depressive status updates,
wherein individuals’ online personas may appear to be depressed even when the individual is not
(Moreno et al. 2011). Mixed findings have been reported on this subject; currently, the literature
does not suggest that Facebook use per se predisposes individuals to become depressed but it may
be that some individuals are more at risk when faced with this particular stress.

SNSs provide platforms through which vulnerable youth can be exposed to agendas that might
inspire or worsen psychopathology. Of particular interest to mental health workers are “pro-ana”
groups, which teach patients with anorexia how to lose weight in an efficient manner, as a way to
hide their disorder (Teufel et al. 2013), and non-suicidal self-injury guides, which not only
encourage self-mutilation, but also provide extensive advice on how to best go about it (Seko et
al. 2015). Such resources can prevent the discovery of a treatable disorder, interfere with therapy,
or potentially put a youth at risk of death.

Identity Formation and Self-Presentation

Sullivan (1953), a prominent interpersonal relationships theorist, believed that preadolescence

is a crucial time for personality development of the individual and is also a time when youth begin
to care for the needs of others as opposed to simply thinking of themselves. Similarly, Erikson
(1959) proposed that adolescence is the developmental period where identity becomes the primary
concern. It is also widely understood within the developmental literature that adolescence is a
period when youth aim to foster their own autonomy via their identity creation, sexuality, and
interpersonal intimacy (e.g., Valkenburg and Peter 2011).

Valkenburg and Peter (2011) argue that youth develop both self-presentation and self-
disclosure skills in order to cultivate their personal autonomy, while Jordán-Conde et al. (2014)
suggest that Facebook is a place where late adolescents experiment with their identity as their
identities are not yet fixed. For example, both younger and older adolescents experiment with their
identity on the Internet by modifying their self-presentation through instant messaging and chatting
(Valkenburg et al. 2005) and older adolescents tend to experiment with the expression of sexual
content as well as explicit language within chat rooms with peers (Subrahmanyam et al. 2006).
College students feel greater subjective well-being when they present themselves positively on
Facebook (Kim and Roselyn Lee 2011), and present themselves as having better emotional well-
being and greater positive affect on Facebook than they do in their actual lives in order to enhance
their self-presentation (Qiu et al. 2012). In this way, youth can receive feedback from others and
integrate this feedback into their self-identity (Valkenburg and Peter 2011). Valkenburg and Peter
argue that online communication allows for the controllability of self-presentation and disclosure
that results in a sense of security, which is not necessarily possible with face-to-face interactions.
Moreover, they go on to state that the Internet provides: (1) anonymity of one’s identity (e.g., in
chat rooms) and audiovisual anonymity (i.e., reduced visual or auditory cues that may be
overwhelming), (2) asynchronicity (e.g., one can change what they were going to write), and (3)
accessibility (e.g., large opportunities to share information). All of these factors are particularly
important for preadolescents and adolescents, who may be especially self-conscious at this stage
in their lives.

Potential Mediating Variables in the Relationship between Social-Media and Well-Being

1. Friendship Relations - One potential mediating variable that may exist between social
media use and well-being is friendship relations. It has already been emphasized that friendships
with peers are of particular importance for preadolescents and adolescents but few studies have
examined online friendship. Friendship relations and social reciprocity may further mediate
whether use of SNS improves or exacerbates emotional distress. Frison and Eggermont (2015)
demonstrated that when adolescents sought social support during stressful life events, depressed
mood improved if they perceived themselves receiving support and worsened if they did not. This
finding underlies the obvious but important point that it is not the act of reaching out to close
others, but rather the perception of their reaching back in response that gives a sense of emotional
support and increases an individuals’ capacity to tolerate adverse events.
2. Individual Differences - Individual differences refer to potential cognitive and/or
emotional tendencies that are characteristic of certain people. Individual differences are crucial to
consider as mediating variables since not every boy and girl will be impacted equally or similarly
by SNS use. These individual differences are potentially key underlying factors that explain the
association between social networking and well-being. Literature on social media and youth often
emphasizes the “poor-get-poorer” and “rich-get-richer” assumptions (e.g., van den Eijnden et al.
2008). These beliefs hold that adolescents with emotional difficulties will experience greater
trouble from Internet use (i.e., “poor-get-poorer”) while healthy adolescents will benefit (i.e.,
“rich-get-richer”).
3. Cognitive Attributions - One important individual difference is one’s cognitive attribution
pattern (i.e., the reasons individuals use to explain the events they experience or observe). It is well
known that interpretations of and reactions to online information can be affected by one’s personal
attitudes (Barnett et al. 2013). Barnett et al. (2013) found that adolescents who experience teasing
in their offline lives are more likely to anticipate having negative emotional and behavioural
reactions to ambiguous teasing on Facebook. Specifically, those who had experienced teasing
offline anticipated that they would feel worse and react more negatively towards teasing than
individuals who had not dealt with teasing. These findings provide initial evidence that cognitive
expectations are important individual differences to consider when examining the relationship
between social media and well-being.
4. Personality Characteristics - It is also important to consider individual differences in
personality traits, such as introversion and extraversion. Valkenburg et al. (2005) reported that
extraverted younger adolescents and introverted older adolescents are more likely to present
themselves as older than they actually are and as more flirtatious online, which provides evidence
that interacting with others serves distinct purposes for youth with different personalities at varying
time points in their development. These same authors also stated that introverted and female youth
are more likely than extraverted and male youth to experiment with their online identities. They
may be motivated to modify or hide their shy identities as a form of social compensation.
Furthermore, Dolev-Cohen and Barak (2013) reported that introverted adolescents who are feeling
distressed experience greater emotional relief following instant messaging with their peers than do
extraverts. Taken together, these findings provide evidence for the differential impact the Internet
in general and SNSs in particular have on youth.
5. Emotional Experiences - Individual differences in emotional experiences are also crucial
to consider. Gross et al. (2002) found that adolescents who are socially anxious or lonely at school
are more likely to use instant messaging to communicate with individuals who they do not know
well, which is in line with recent findings (e.g., Valkenburg and Peter 2007a). Conversely, peers
who are not experiencing such difficulties tend to connect with their existing friends on the Internet
(Gross et al. 2002). However, van den Eijnden et al. (2008) did not find support for these results,
and instead reported that adolescents who experience of greater degree of loneliness tend to use
instant messaging less than other adolescents. From the adult literature, Caplan (2003) found that
online social interactions are preferred by individuals suffering from psychosocial distress
compared to healthy people due to the threat reduction that the Internet provides. Results indicated
that levels of depression and loneliness could predict having a preference for online social
interaction.

References/Additional Resources/Readings

Cell Phones, Dopamine, and Development; Retrieved from https://youtu.be/kGZvNbfrNag;

03/13/21
How Social Media Shapes Identity; Retrieved from https://youtu.be/CSpyZor-Byk; 03/13/21
Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health; Retrieved from https://youtu.be/Czg_9C7gw0o;
03/13/21
The Digital Self: Why Do We Express Ourselves on Social Media Like we do; Retrieved from
https://sensum.co/blog/the-digital-self-why-do-we-express-ourselves-on-social-media-like-
we-do; 03/13/21
Understanding and Creating your Digital Self; Retrieved from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-digital-self/201008/understanding-and-
creating-your-digital-self; 03/13/21
Wood, M.A., Bukowski, W.M. & Lis, E. The Digital Self: How Social Media Serves as a Setting
that Shapes Youth’s Emotional Experiences. Adolescent Res Rev 1, 163–173 (2016).
Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/s40894-015-0014-8