For Pro Sendric

Ahmad Abdulrahman

Professor Keshishyan

English 113 A

11 October 2014

The Social Media Idintity

Social media is an interaction platform where people in virtual communities share and exchange information. In this platform, people share, discuss, Co-create and modify their user generated contents. Social media has become a native habitus for many and is a place to perform our various roles in our multimodal lives, as a professional, a parent, an acquaintance, and a colleague (Weedon). People nowdays are spending most of their time on the social media websites more than any thing els. As per the 2012 data, the time spent on mobile and PC devices on social media increased by a margin of 37% to a total 121 billion as compared to the 2011 data, which indicated that the time spent on mobile devices was 66 billion minutes (Green). However, despite the time spent on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, most information posted on these sites is personal opinion and not fact. This, therefore, underlines the fact that an opinion cannot exclusively determine the identity and trait of a person.

People, especially the younger generation are part of the large virtual society called social media. Here, people express their opinions and thoughts. Nevertheless, most people try to create a perception that would make them appear better persons (Laroya). This kind of portrayal is termed as an ideal self. Most people who embrace technology in terms of online interaction have two identities, i.e. the real person and his/ her ideal identity (Green). The introduction of Facebook, twitter and instagram encourages users to portray themselves as better people than who they really are. This is what is termed as promoting their ideal identity other than their real personalities.

Alteration of the online behavior is an aspect someone can easily change. Given the type of person one interacts with, the online profile can easily be changed to fit the group a person relates to. Online behavior is a habit that is adopted to reveal the trait of an individual on the social media system. Virtual friends can alter someone’s behavior in the sense that he/ she changes his perception towards a certain group of people (Lam). These people could be from a different geographical location or religion too and therefore, the person alters his trait and perceptions to accommodate them in his/ her circle and encourage good friendship and communication.

Online traits can significantly change someone’s trait by a big margin. This is also called the ideal identity altering the real identity. Citing the actions of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, it is possible for the social media platform alter a person’s trait. After revealing the state secrets via WikiLeaks, Assange must have felt he was a traitor and disloyal to his country. The effect of his online act forced him to run into asylum in Russia (Green). Conversely, online mobilisers (in the event of protests) may imagine that because they are famous on the digital platform they therefore are powerful in the real world, yet the contrary could be true. This is evidenced in Adrew’s article where he says, Young people used social networks like Facebook and Twitter to rally tens of thousands of people downtown (Andrew).

The online platform has a minimal impact in terms of influencing the real personality of an individual. Most people on the virtual platform transform their traits to make them relevant to their social circles (Laroya). However, transformation of behavior and trait of the ideal person to the real person can be done through alignment of the two sets of personalities i.e. the real person and his/ her ideal personality. The act of portraying an individual’s ideal identity can motivate his/ her real identity to work extremely hard and achieve the acquired trait in the real world (Lam). Talented actors on YouTube can go to theatres and perfect the art of acting and therefore make their ideal personalities real.

Although too many people the online identity could be extremely different from the personal ideal identity, the ability to edit the personal information creates a barrier to many online personalities desire to develop their real characters so that there is a match between the real and ideal nature. Citing examples such as Mark Zuckerberg, his online personality is a real representation of his real identity.

The social media offer a platform where people who had initially never met, meet and interact with a single platform. Failure of knowing each other personally encourages most users to create a perception. It is from this perception that an ideal self is created. Operating on a perspective approach makes most people exhibit their trait and professions to whom they wish to be. This is what is commonly termed as an ideal identity of a person (Lam). Teenagers who act sex tapes in their houses, record them and sell them via the internet makes them imagine they may be professional pornographic actors yet in real sense they are not. The main reason why ideal identities are common in the virtual platform is because the society is driven on the basis of achievement, status quo as well as success (Green). These sets of variables influence the habit of people in the online platform. Even the less successful individuals may feel not contended with their achievements and therefore are forced to depict false identities. The perfect picture is evident through Gill Laroya’s article where he says "Your life is defined by how you interact with the environment around you and how your environment reacts to what you do."

The greatest fear that emanates from a continuous increase in the number of people in the online platform is that many people are trapped and therefore operate in a world of simulated reality i.e. ideality instead of reality. Improving individual identity in enhancing personal abilities and career goals as Kay Green illustrates “Rather than focusing your attention and effort into creating an ideal online persona, use your time and effort to accomplish the goals that will align your real self with your ideal self”. (Green)

Works cited

Green, R. "The Social Media Effect: Are You Really Who You Portray Online?." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 7 Aug. 2013. Web. 13 Oct. 2014..

Lam, Andrew. "I Tweet, Therefore I Am - New America Media." I Tweet, Therefore I Am - New America Media. N.p., n.d. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

Laroya, Gil. "Defining Our Role in Social Media." The Huffington Post.TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 July 2014. Web. 14 Oct. 2014.

Knight, Julia, and Alexis Weedon. "Identity and Social Media." Convergence, 20.3 (2014): 257-

258.