Will Heslink

Class 1
5/14/16
Ms. Bartz, RWW9
I-den-ti-ty (noun): The concept you develop about yourself
that evolves over the course of your life.
Over the past decade, internet based social media platforms
like Snapchat, Facebook and Twitter have grown user bases
in the hundred of millions or in the case of Facebook over 1
billion accounts. Social media is often the most common way
people post facts, events and memories about themselves,
their families, or their friends. In our social media world, a
persons public face can be viewed as their self-proclaimed
identity. All that is required is the ability to type a
sentence or two to post on your profile for the entire internet
to see.
While some social scientists view the explosion of social
media as artful self-expressions and a tool for a more
connected world, there is much evidence that social media is
a shallow snapshot of a persons identity. A self-created
social media identity cannot cover the full span of a persons
identity and is a very untrustworthy vehicle for portraying a
persons true self.
One area where social media creates a false identity is in
popularity of the user. People often equate their number of
friends or likes on a photo to their amount of influence or
popularity. From an article by Austin Considine in the New
York Times; 71 percent of Lady Gagas nearly 29 million
Twitter followers are "fake" or "inactive." In the social media
area it is possible to buy followers and popularity for as little
as $5 per thousand followers. While this practice can create
an on-line identity of popularity, it is very far from a true
identity.

In addition to social media s popularity score; it is often

used as a method to control your own message. According to
a recent study by Michigan researcher Elliot Panek, "It's
(social media) about curating your own image, how you are
seen, and also checking on how others respond to this
image," he said. Further, Panek states that narcissistic
people tend to post more frequently on Facebook. On-line
identities are self-created and self-serving; it is unlikely that
a user will post an event that makes them look bad, a party
they werent invited to or a picture where they dont look
their best. A self-made identity will only show the good
parts. Every social media outlet provides the ability to
delete comments or unfavorable posts to an individual
picture or comment. Adding together both fake and self
edited posts does not lead to the perception that your
Snapchat account is a true picture of your real identity.
However, there are some commentators who claim that
social media identities have positive benefits in terms of
fundraising for causes or distribution of new ideas. Whlle
there are cases for good deeds, they are often bad deeds
such as: selfies, cyber bullying or bragging about a beautiful
vacation spot. A large majority of social media identities are
focused on the me aspect and how many likes a user can
obtain. Therefore, on a good to bad of 1:100; The few
positive posts dont overcome the bad and do not portray a
persons full identity.
Again, an on-line identity cannot hope to cover the full
complexity of a persons real identity. Unfortunately, each
user is their own editor and creates their own content that is
easily manipulated and changed to suit the story the user
wants to tell. When you can also falsely promote that
identity by buying fake promoters, it can only lead to a
shallow and fake view of yourself.
The on-line community would benefit from adopting the view
of dont believe everything you read in order to
understand what a person is like in real-life vs. their on-line

profile. In an age when people are spending more time

updating their on-line identities than building strong personal
relationships not based on perception, balance needs to be
struck between celebrity and reality.

"Identity." Random House Webster's Dictionary. New York:

Ballantine, 2001. Print.
Considine, A. (2012, Aug 23). Buying their way to twitter
fame. New York TimesRetrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1034643404?
accountid=41978
You're so vain: U-M study links social media and narcissism.
(2013, Jun 12).Targeted News Service Retrieved from
http://search.proquest.com/docview/1366579387?
accountid=41978