The Impact of Social Networking Sites In The Identity Formation

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

During the old days when teens spent hours alone in their rooms or with close friends dancing in front of the mirror, playing outside their houses, trying different outfits and modeling around the corner; trying on different personas in person is out, the web deletes the middle man. Now, there are a variety of online social media applications to enable communication between adolescents. Due to the ego-centric nature of these applications, social networking sites allow adolescents to extend their true personalities to the online world while also adding onto them. The impersonal nature of communicating from behind a computer screen can allow adolescents to create a completely new and unrestrained personality that they would never show in real life. Personal web pages give teens the control to present themselves in whatever way they choose to an actual audience that’s also controllable and far less intimidating than showing up in person to try out a new possible identity (Schmitt et al., 2008). The Internet has quickly become the most expeditious, central means of communication and access to information so it makes perfect sense that this trend in media would trickle down to impact the lives of youth everywhere. There are numerous reasons why the internet has become the chosen means by which adolescents discover their identity. Adolescents find that the internet and social personal web pages offer them a safe place to try on different ‘hats’ or try out new personalities without the fear of rejection or embarrassment and the normal risks associated with real life trials of the same magnitude (Schmitt et al., 2008). The internet, especially sites like Facebook offer prominent places for youth to put themselves out there in a textural/multimedia forum for others to