How Online Environments Shape Our Identities
The digital world allows people of all ages to play with their identity. This helps it serve as an integral part of identity development. Growing up you learn what is socially accepted by peers and family. If something that you connect with is not on the list of acceptable, you hide it. That doesn’t have to change how you feel about that thing, but you don’t want to share information about it on a public platform anymore. Maybe instead you go to Reddit and join a community under a name that is not your own and you find that there are people like you. As discussed by Wängqvist & Frisén (2016), people adjust the representation of themselves of public social media sites in order to remain socially accepted. In my own life, myself and friends have held more than one Instagram account, in order to keep our private thoughts more private. The public account shows people what they want to see: pictures of you out and about doing things, laughing, smiling, eating food, etc. The private account allows you to share more: funny face photos that don’t make you feel pretty, thoughts during bad mental health days, vulnerable posts asking for advice, and whatever else you need that space for. We were able to control our public image, as discussed by Bozkurt & Tu (2016), as if it were a performance on a stage.
The digital world also gives people space to find peace with parts of their own identity that they themselves might be fighting, such as an LGBTQ+ youth in a household where they feel they won’t be accepted. One of the most magical parts of the digital world to me is that it opens up new opportunities to find who you are. Have you always been interested in learning to cook? Rollerblade? Draw? The internet has countless ways for you to learn. And just that, learning, can be a magical thing to. Even though some will not want to acknowledge it, there are many kinds of people on this earth, with different thoughts and experiences than your own. For those who have not had a chance to explore a city beyond theirs, or even ideas outside their own home, the digital world can feel like a rebellious place. To learn of other political, religious, cultural beliefs than your own helps to develop you as an educated independent thinker.
The reason it feels so rebellious to explore online is the idea that you can be judged for not believing or enjoying the same things as others, not being who they want you to be. But more than it divides, the digital world has the power to unite many people across many miles with shared experiences. Alec Couros shows this positive power from his own experience. So, how do we open up everyone to those positive forces on the internet, so that they do not feel the need to hide who they are from the world? One way is to teach positive online presence early on. Alec Couros touches on some ways this is done by teachers giving students the ability to create sample tweets and get them approved for posting. He also discusses how communication strategies used in the non-digital world can be applied to the digital world. I feel that another important tool to creating a positive digital world is to teach how they are connected. To teach that there is a person behind that screen and that that person has every much a right to exist as you do. But we also must teach that although that person is real, everything they say or show may not be true. That happiness could be a performance. That pain can be behind the smiles shown in images. That people are vulnerable and should be treated kindly.
“Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.” — Barbara De Angelis
