DIGITAL SELF

ONLINE IDENTITY

—Using the internet, it is the sum of your characteristics and interactions represented.

—Results from different interactions with each website visited, showing a different picture of
who you are and what you do.

DIGITAL SELF (VIRTUAL SELF)

—The ability to share self-produced media online is one of the most salient changes brought
about by the digital technology.

—Most individuals conceal themselves to engage in the digital world.

IDENTITY

—A bizarre piece of information corresponds with an entity.

—Simply an accumulation of characteristics which are inherent or are assigned by another

(Abelson and Lessig ,1998)

SOCIAL IDENTITY

—indicates personal information which incorporates individual’s name , age, country of origin to
name a few.

—a compilation of information we actively exhibit to the social group which we are part of .

SELF PRESENTATION AND IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

—Users likely imagine how they will appear to others

—They also seem into take into account the expected reactions of others(de Vries, 2014)
—Our behaviour is influenced on how others expect to see us

SELF-PRESENTATION

—“The control of information about self” -Schlenker & Pontari

IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

—Encompasses any goal-directed of controlling the impressions that others form.

TWO COMPONENT MODEL OF IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

*Impression motivation

—Individuals want to control the impression others have of them.

*Impression construction

—individuals are motivated to control the impression they may make.

IMPACT OF ONLINE INTERACTION WITH THE SELF

Positive self- presentation

—Increases self esteem
Negative self-presentation

—Decreases self esteem

Boundaries of self online

Gender
—social constructed roles that individuals accept and present to others.
—biological sex, we use the terms boys and girls to refer to the normative framework although
it is stated that:
1. difficult to determine an internet user’s actual biological sex
2.gender and sex exist along a continuum

Social network sites

—satisfy their curiosity(Urista et al.,2009)

EXTENDED SELF

5 changes emerging from our current digital age

1.) DEMATERIALIZATION

—composed of electronic streams of ones and zeroes that may be stored locally or in some
“hard to imagine” cloud.

NEEDED EXTENDED SELF UPDATES DUE TO DEMATERIALIZATION

ATTACHMENT AND SINGULARIZATION

—can consumers become attached to immaterial possessions as they can to material
possession?
ALMOST, BUT NOT QUITE, THE SAME(what virtual possessions lack)
—Extending the individual sense of self more than participating in a shred aggregate self that
transcends.

2.)REEMBODIMENT

AVATAR

—characterizes as a progressive process (Biocca,1997)

—an icon or figure representing a particular person in video games, internet forums, etc.

NEEDED EXTENDED SELF UPDATES DUE TO REEMBODIMENT

ATTACHMENT TO AVATARS
—Regardless of the level of immersion,players get attached to their avatars esp.”1st born”
PROTEUS EFFECTS

—The mind is a reembodied mind...it is now a reembodied mind extended into an avatar

MULTIPLICITY
—many Massively Multiuser Online Game (MMOG) and virtual world participants have multiple
characters.

3.)SHARING

—To distribute on the internet

—To post (something) on a social media platform.

Digital devices

— help us to share more, as well as more broadly, than ever before.

Disinhibition effect

—lack of face-to-face gaze meeting

—able to express their “true self” better online than they ever could in face-to-face contexts.
NEEDED EXTENDED SELF UPDATES DUE TO SHARING

SELF REVELATION
—it is now easier to present ourselves in ways that would have been awkward, at best in digital
times
LOSS OF CONTROL
—once private is now more likely to be public
SHARED DIGITAL POSSESSIONS AND AGGREGATE SELF
—members may not be personally known aside from pseudonyms and online contribution
(Born,2011)
SHARED SENSE OF (Cyber) SPACE
—we consider cyberspace as a public place that is occupied by a partial rotating set of
participants

4.)CO-CONSTRUCTION OF SELF
—Digital involvements are social in nature
—Increasingly help in constructing our individual and joint extended sense of self through an
updated version of Cooley’s networking sites are now seen as important sites of psychological
development, especially between adolescence and adulthood.

NEEDED EXTENDED SELF UPDATES DUE TO CO-CONSTRUCTION OF SELF

AFFIRMATION SEEKING
—friends can help through their postings, tagging and comments
BUILDING AGGREGATE EXTENDED SELF
—Extending the individual sense of self more than participating in a shared aggregate self that
transcends both individuals.

DISTRIBUTED MEMORY
—Technologies allow access to an expanded archive of individual and collective
autobiographical memory cues.

NEEDED EXTENDED SELF UPDATES DUE TO DISTRIBUTED MEMORY

Digital Clutter
—Strategy of keeping everything and then searching for what we want to reconnect with at
later point in time
Narratives of the Self
—“identity is not to be found in behaviour, nor -important though this is– in the reaction of
others, but in the capacity to keep a particular narrative going” (Giddens,1991). It is through our
narratives that we construct and express our identities.
Digital Cue to Sense of Past
—Distributed digital memory also operates at the level of collective memory and aggregate
extended self.

SUMMARY OF DIGITAL MODIFICATIONS OF THE EXTENDED SELF DEMATERIALIZATION

Self—N/A

Possessions—Attachment to and singularization of virtual possessions; almost, but not quiet the
same.
REEMBODIMENT
Self,—Avatars affect offline self; multiplicity of selves

Possessions—Attachment to avatars

SHARING
Self—Self revelation; loss of control
Possessions—Aggregate possessions; sense of shared place online
CO-CONSTRUCTION

Self—Affirmation of self; Building aggregate extended self; “Attachment to virtual Possessions in

Videogames”
Possessions—N/A
DISTRIBUTED MEMORY
Self—Narratives of self
Possessions—Digital clutter; digital cues to sense of past