Essay

Online construction of identity is a very recent form of presenting oneself within social culture today. The past ten years has seen the rise of social networks, email, chat rooms, gaming, and internet shopping. This phenomenon has occurred in parallel with increasing Internet access and availability, it is becoming easier and easier to update yourself online and check constantly what is going on. People are now able to do it from their phones, keeping up to date with online identity is becoming a normal part of daily lives and routine; people wake up, have breakfast, check their email or social networks. There has been no question about this sudden importance and urge to constantly check the online world and events; it has gained a place in lives without people realising it, and if taken away, the effects would be felt.

This form of identity construction enables constant updating and improvements to be made to the persona people project, often differing from reality. Everyone knows what friends and peers are doing around them, keeping up to date with people’s lives and looking at the way they present themselves online and offline so to alter how they may present themselves.

‘It is part of the external fascination of drama that we can see ‘how the world works’ in lives other than our own’ (Gauntlett, 2008, pg 2)

Everyone is competing with one another to be best or most liked with the most friends. It seems people are never satisfied and there is always room for improvement. The creation of online communities has made us an increasingly nosey world.

Second life is a version of fantasy online construction of identity in which people pay to keep an alternate persona alive, called an avatar. They interact with other people who have created a fantasy self and develop virtual relationships and jobs etc.

‘On a single day in Second Life you can buy virtual clothes, fly a virtual plane and even enjoy virtual sexual liaisons within designated areas. I was there to report on the place for the Financial Times, but almost everyone else I met seemed to have an equally valid reason for being there too. Surrounded by palm trees, carefully cultivated beaches and gorgeously dressed virtual women, there were whole armies of clueless avatars- marketers, writers, publishers, academics, technology geeks and designers- wandering around with strict instructions to sample whatever exotic delights Second Life has to offer’ (Harkin, 2009, Preface)

An example of how social networks become real life is the story of David Pollard and Amy Taylor, who met on Second Life and got married in real life. Only he had an affair on Second Life which led to the couples divorce. Showing how online identity and events impact on real life.

Twitter allows expression of every thought. You can now Twitterize Yourself; your tweets are generated to 
create a version of yourself online reflecting what you tweet about. A lot of identities projected online are not true reflections of oneself, online Twitterized versions of self could differ greatly from reality.

Facebook is a social phenomenon which allows careful construction of identity. First developed for students at Harvard University in America by Mark Zuckerberg, who ran The Facebook as it was called then, from his dorm room in 2004. By the end of 2004, The Facebook had 1 million users and now it seems unusual to meet someone without a Facebook profile. People who do not have an online presence are quizzed about reasons why they don’t and if they ever will, finding themselves having to justify something that they would never have had to previously as it is considered to be the social norm. To not have an online presence and identity of some sort in the culture and generation today is considered to be a statement which may be unintentional.

Facebook has developed a place in language and the way we speak to people. For example, people saying ‘I’ll Facebook you’ to inform friends of events or to make social arrangements. Events are organised using Facebook, it is an easy way to contact big groups of people. If not present on Facebook, you can find yourself unaware that you may be missing out on something important. Being part of the right groups, liking and disliking certain things adds to online persona.

‘Participants are now becoming conscious of the information they themselves publish. For example, not joining a certain group for fear of their reputation in the offline world being disputed’ (Boyd, 2008)

Facebook enables de tagging of photographs that may look unflattering or present a different side to one’s personality that they do not want to reveal. People strive to present themselves in the best way they can to peers, accentuating the vanity in which is not always intended to be revealed as it is a negative quality. However, the compulsion to de tag over rides this. People can see what you choose to keep and remove from your profile, which causes them to judge either way.

Parents have begun to construct identities on Facebook; they can survey what their children may be doing at any time. However, Facebook does is enable the user to tailor what each person on their friends list sees if there is something they do not wish to reveal. The profiles have developed into more detailed pages about people, likes, dislikes, photos, links, people can share what they are thinking at any time, allowing access to what people are feeling, eating, doing, at any second of the day. There is a compulsion to know and see all that humans cannot steer away from.

‘In his work on social upkeep, evolutionary biologist Robin Dunbar found that humans gossip (as in they share personal information) for the same reason monkeys groom – to keep tabs on the social world around them (Dunbar, 1996)’ (Boyd, 2008, pg 16)

Facebook can predict what you may be interested in by what is on your profile, it tailors the advertisements at the side of the page to your interests to entice you into buying products; this is how it makes its money. Most things are connected to Facebook or have a Facebook page; you can like things off Amazon, IMDB, Blogs, and businesses. Facebook creates a feeling of self-importance; people want to know about everything, receiving notifications causes self-gratification.

Mark Zuckerberg comments on the newsfeed feature of Facebook as ‘a stream of everything that’s going on in their lives’.

Facebook presents Panopticism in the way it is monitored and controlled. People can find you and can read everything about you; it is hard to escape Facebook even if you choose not to construct a profile, you will still be present in photographs and conversations. There is a feeling of surveillance, although it is a supposed chosen form of surveillance, society has been indoctrinated into thinking that constructing ourselves online is a logical and necessary action, if not online, you miss out on events and opportunities in real life. People can check-in to places, even if they do not wish to, their friends can let everyone know where they are at any time. Everyone can see what you are doing. Facebook or online friends can see everything about you, yet when faced with in reality, you have little in common with and little to talk about. However, deleting them off your friend list causes great uproar and offence though there may never have been a foundation of friendship in past life offline.

‘all Friends are treated equally and updates come from all Friends, not just those that an individual deems to be close friends’ (Boyd, 2008, pg 17)

The online social world is a complex realm of unspoken rules and ways to interact that people must abide to. There is no way to tell tone of voice or context online. For example, sarcasm, the above quote relates to sarcasm greatly. Many things get misinterpreted as it is not a real conversation and things can be construed in completely the wrong way.

‘With Facebook, participants have to consider how others might interpret their actions, knowing that any action will be broadcast to everyone with whom they consented to digital Friendship. For many, it is hard to even remember whom they listed as Friends, let alone assess the different ways in which they may interpret information. Without being able to see their Friends’ reactions, they are not even aware of when their posts have been misinterpreted’ (Boyd, 2008, pg 16)

Online identities and relationships can turn sour and into public fall outs. If you declare that you are in a relationship with someone, people can express their thoughts about your relationship, and if you break up, they can leave comments and pass thoughts on events as if they are involved in the relationship themselves.

Profiles have now developed into a Timeline format, to show everything everyone has done from their day of birth if they choose to share it.

‘The idea of ourselves as messengers, navigating an endless loop of information is called Cybernetics’ (Harkin, 2009, pg xi)

This description of the online world presents an idea of self-importance and the developing need we are making ourselves have for the existence of people as online beings. Cybernetics and Cyburbia must be kept going constantly with the constant exchange of information to connect people and events offline.

Simultaneously, technology and creators of these networks are developing to be better and more popular than the previous one. With the rise of Facebook and the demise in popularity of Myspace, it is apparent that Myspace profiles and applications began to mirror Facebook.

If desired, people can construct multiple differing identities dependant on who they are presenting themselves too and how they wish to be perceived. However, this is risky business when people who know you in the real world can easily discover these multiple identities, which differ from reality, only one presentation can be true to real life.

‘This narrative can always be gently revised, but an individual who tells conspicuously different versions of their biography to friends may be resented and rejected, and acute embarrassment is associated with the revelation that once has provided divergent accounts of past events’ (Giddens in Gauntlett, 2008, pg 108)

Although there are different aspects to people, it is not possible maintain multiple differing personalities. People who create these differing profiles may use these personas as an escape and get away from reality; however, actions online affects relationships offline. Things said online are recorded and transferred into real life situations; online events enter the real physical world. Online profiles and the way they are constructed are entering and becoming real life identities.

‘‘Facebook is positioning itself as not just your social graph online, but your life online’- Forrester Research analyst Sean Corcora’ (Cellan-Jones, 2011)

We are conditioned to present ourselves a certain way and act a certain ways according to place and situation, for example, at work, you present a professional, together persona. At home the way you act is much different as you are surrounded by family or friends. The title, role or surroundings you are in dictates behaviour and language used, much like behaviour online and offline.

‘We know that in service occupations practitioners who may otherwise be sincere are sometimes forced to delude their customers because their customers show such heartfelt demand for it.’ (Goffman, 1959, pg 29)

Online communities and network have no boundaries for identity construction, people are not constrained to labels such as a teacher, a nurse, a builder, they do not have to fulfil expectations in the way they behave or perform and people can often find themselves acting different to how they would in reality. The idea that identity is a performance in different surroundings and social situations is an ever present theory. Online identities are a performance as we are continuingly editing the persona we are projecting to friends and acquaintances according to who we are with.

‘I have been using the term ‘performance’ to refer to all activity of an individual which occurs during a period marked by his continuous presence before a particular set of observers and which has some influence on the observers.’ (Goffman, 1959, pg 32)

Projected identity has an effect on people observing. This directly relates to Facebook as people are constantly checking up on each other and updating themselves according to what they see online.

A recent film called ‘Catfish’ presents this ability people have to construct online identities. It follows Ariel Schulman and his brother Nev as he develops a romantic relationship over Facebook. Nev speaks to Abby, a woman who is seemingly real from her Facebook profile, on the phone and via text. She sends him paintings by her little sister and he begins to fall for this online version of Abby. As the film unfolds, Nev decides he finally wants to travel to meet her, however, when he arrives he discovers that this woman he has fallen in love with is not real. The reality is a middle aged woman, who has created Abby, multiple profiles and characters such as her little sister as a fantasy and escape from her real life. She reveals how she put on different voices on the phone to create the illusion of different people. This reflects a story of a woman so unhappy in her own life she convinces herself and Nev that she is Abby as a form of escapism.

There has been debate and questioning about whether the documentary is based on true events. However, it presents a dangerous use of online construction of identity and social networking which is entirely possible and has great implications in real life. Creating a projection of self and a life happier than one’s own prevents the improvement of reality and facing real life situations. The world the woman creates in ‘Catfish’ gave her a sense of control until it became real. It shows the possibilities of constructing false identities and networks online, presenting more questions, how are we able to decipher what is true? People believe what they want to be true, and can convince themselves that they are, in fact, the identity they create online, offline.

Bibliography

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Bauman, Z (2004) Identity: Conversations with Benedetto Vecchi, Cambridge, Polity Press

Boyd, D (2008) Facebook’s Privacy Trainwreck; Exposure, Invasion and Social Convergence, Los Angeles, http://www.danah.org/papers/FacebookPrivacyTrainwreck.pdf [24/01/12]

Cellan-Jone, R (2011) Facebook focuses on media sharing and adds timeline, London, BBC [25/01/12] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15028920

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