Understanding the Self
Week 13 Finals: The Digital Self
“There will be time, there will be time, to
prepare a face to meet the faces that you
meet.”
―T.S. Eliot, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Digital Self
The digital self, also known as online identity, is used to
describe a person’s representation of himself on the
Internet.
In different social media platforms, a person can
construct a controlled projection that impacts how
other people perceive him.
The self that is constructed online; it is the persona you
use when you’re online.
Lionel Trilling’s (1997)
Sincerity - refers to the exposure in public of what one
feels privately.
Authenticity - is one who takes action based on some
internal standard and takes responsibility for this freely
chosen action.
The social world of a western-influenced society, like
the Philippines, typically consists of three domains:
• Family
• School
• Neighborhood
The emergence of the Internet, however, adds a fourth
domain—the online life —to the social world. The
online life has definitely altered the dynamics of self-
identity, especially for adolescents.
I, Me, Myself, and my user ID online identity
Zhao (2005)
He constructed online is generally called the digital self.
Analyses of the experiences of online users (especially
teenagers) have shown that the characteristics of the
digital self are:
➢ Oriented inward - the world of thoughts and
feelings because others cannot see the online
user’s overt attributes.
➢ Narrative in nature - online users will only come
to know the person primarily through what that
person tells them.
➢ Retractable - others are unable to link the
online self-claims to the offline identities.
➢ Multipliable - people can interact with one
another in different domains of the online world
at relatively the same time.
Selective Self-Presentation and Impression
Management
Self-presentation
- People are able to present themselves online in
the manner that they want to.
- It refers to the conscious or unconscious efforts
an individual make to create, modify, or
maintain an impression of himself in the mind
of others.
Reasons for Engaging in Self-Presentation:
• Helps facilitate social interaction
• Enables individuals to attain material and social
rewards
• Helps people privately construct desired identities
The basic kinds of people you interact with online are:
1. People you do not know at all
2. People you know both online and offline
3. People you know only online
Generally, social media platforms are used for:
• Social browsing
• Social searching
• Communication
• Impression management
Impression Management
- The attempt to control or influence any other
people’s perceptions.
- This could be their perception of a certain
person (including you), a material possession, or
an event.
There are two main motives of attempting to manage
the impressions of others:
1. Instrumental
- This motive is to basically gain rewards and
increase one’s self esteem.
2. Expressive
- This motivation is about attempting to be in
control of one’s personal behavior and identity.
It is a response to moral norms, expectations, or
restrictions, seeking to show others that he or
she, as a person, is different.
Impression Management Strategies:
➢ Self-promotion - is a proactive process in which
a person actively says things or takes action to
show his or her competence to an audience.
➢ Ingratiation - is the process by which someone
tries to win the approval or acceptance of
another.
➢ Exemplification - involves a strategic self-
sacrifice so that observers may recognize the
dedication.
➢ Intimidation - is a strategy that involves
showing off authority, power, or the potential to
punish to be seen by observers as someone who
could be or is dangerous.
➢ Supplication - is an approach where the
individual exploits his/her weaknesses or
shortcomings to receive help or benefits.
Impact of Online Interactions on the Self
The emergence of the internet has changed the way
people express themselves and interact with others.
In the digital age, the Internet could highly affect how
teenagers form their identities. They tend to seek for
outside affirmation from friends and strangers through
different social media platforms. However, this can also
give them an amplified feeling of invisibility which can
have a great influence on how they perceive
themselves.
The current generation doesn’t know how to
differentiate their real-time identity and online
identity. They see these two as identical, when in fact
these are not. Technology, specifically the Internet,
makes it more difficult for teenagers to form an identity
since it creates more versions of the “self” than before.
Douglas Rushkoff
➢ Digiphrenia - is the experience of trying to exist
in more than one incarnation of yourself at the
same time. There’s your Twitter profile, your
Facebook profile, your email inbox. All these
sorts of multiple instances of you are operating
simultaneously and in parallel. And that’s not a
comfortable position for most human beings.
App-dependent behavior - refers to which an individual
relies heavily on digital applications for communication,
productivity, entertainment, and other functionalities.
Catherine Steiner-Adair
- A psychologist and author of “The Big
Disconnect: Protecting Childhood and Family
Relationships in the Digital Age,” says the kind of
outside affirmation sought online is a vital part
of how teens form identity.
2010 study from York University
- found that people with lower self-esteem spent
more time online and posted more “self-
promotional” content to sites like Facebook.
Social Networking Site
Online equipment for creating relationships with other
people who share an interest, background, or real
relationship.
Hyper Personal Model
Gonzales & Hancock (2011)
- Suggested that the advantage of computer-
mediated communication is that a person can
edit his or her self-presentation, which in turn
positively impacts impressions on the self; thus,
greater intimacy is possible.
What makes us so addicted?
One Cannot Communicate
- Social networks break the barriers of distance
and time through allowing people to
communicate anytime and anywhere. These
have also expanded the possibilities of sharing
and playing identities.
The social world is socially constructed through
interactions between people: roles, rules,
categorizations, stereotypes.
Social Validation
- Finding validation from others.
- Hence, a Facebook “Like” or a Twitter “Favorite”
is a social signal that makes us feel good and
makes us want to crave for more.
Boundaries of the self online: Private vs.
public; personal/individual vs. social identity
online
Baumeister (2012):
- He gives very different definitions of the
concept of “private” and “public.”
Understanding the difference between these
concepts will help in your study of the “self”.
Social profiles
- Refers to the digital representations of
individuals on different online platforms,
capturing various aspects of their identity,
interests, and activities. These provide users
with a space to share information about
themselves and engage with others.
Private vs Public
Private
➢ Refers to mental events in a person that are
inherently unobservable by others.
Some advantages of making your online profile private:
- You have control over viewers. You only connect
with those you want to communicate with.
- Your online profile is protected from scammers
and bashers.
Disadvantages of a private profile:
- Your network is very limited; thus, you close
your doors to opportunities that social
networking bring.
- Your engagement is very low.
- You do not get to meet interesting people with
whom you can exchange ideas or learn from.
- If you are an entrepreneur, a private profile will
not help grow your business.
Public
➢ Behaviors that are open to the observations of
other people.
Possible advantages of making your online profile
public:
- It facilitates open communication that could
lead to better and faster information discovery
and delivery.
- It allows open discussion on ideas and the
posting of news, asking of questions, and
sharing of links.
- It provides an opportunity to widen business
contacts.
- It targets a wide audience, making it a useful
and effective tool to increase your network of
friends.
 - If you are an entrepreneur, it improves business
reputation and client base with minimal use of
advertising.
- It helps expand market research, implement
marketing campaigns, deliver communications,
and direct interested people to specific
websites.
Possible risks:
- It opens up the possibility for hackers to commit
fraud and launch spam and virus attacks.
- It increases the risk of people falling prey to
online scams that seem genuine, resulting in
data or identity theft.
- It potentially results in negative comments and
bashing.
Individual vs Social Identity
Personal (Individual) Identity
➢ Is the concept you develop about yourself that
evolves over the course of your life.
➢ This may include aspects of your life that you
have no control over, such as where you grew
up or the color of your skin, as well as choices
you make in life, such as how you spend your
time and what you believe in.
Characteristics of personal identity:
- The emphasis is on the individual.
- It is created through differences in personal
characteristics when comparing the self with
others.
Social Identity
Henri Tajfel and John Turner (1979)
➢ Is a person’s sense of who he/she is based on
group membership(s).
➢ They asserted that the groups (e.g., social class,
family, basketball team, and so on), to which
people belonged to were an important source
of pride and self-esteem.
Characteristics of social identity:
- The emphasis is on what the person has in
common with the members of his or her group.
- It is created based on similarities with others.
Gender and sexuality online
Disembodiment hypothesis - suggests that through the
Internet, individuals are able to allow the mind to
engage in social activities while the body is static.
On the Internet, people do not need to conform to an
assigned gender. Thus, they are able to freely perform,
communicate, and act based on their true gender
identity.
The world has truly been transformed by the Internet,
especially when it comes to the concept of gender
identity.
Sex – is based on the biological make up of a person,
which can be identified as male or female.
Gender – According to Judith Butler is a product of
discourse, interactions, and social processes.
Stereotype
Cardwell (2014)
➢ a fixed overgeneralized belief about a particular
group or class of people.
➢ Assuming that the characteristics and abilities of
one person is also present in all members of the
group.
➢ Stereotyping leads to social categorization,
which is one of the reasons for prejudice
attitudes.
Sexuality
- Refers to a person’s feelings, attractions,
behaviors, and orientations related to one’s
emotional, romantic, and sexual experience.

Factors that affect an adolescent’s sexuality:

Hormones
- The brain controls puberty by producing
hormones that travel in the bloodstream to
various organs.
- Gonads/Genitals are the sex organs that are
stimulated to make sex hormones.
- A girl’s ovaries are stimulated to make the
female hormone estrogen.
- A boy’s testicles are stimulated to make the
male hormone testosterone.

Personality or temperament
- Is an important psychological factor that also
decides the attitude toward sexuality.
- For example, there are introvert adolescents
who face difficulty in approaching and
responding sexually.

Social or environmental factors

- Facilitate sexual learning and decide the sexual
attitude of the adolescent include:
• Attitude of parents toward sexuality
• Parenting style
• Peer relationship
• Cultural influences.

Media and the Internet

- Adolescents’ access to them can easily literature
related to sexuality, sexual crimes, and violence
that affect their perception and attitudes
toward sexuality.

Your mobile device quickly has become the

easiest portal into your digital self.

- Phil Nickinson Android Central