Who am I in the

Cyberworld?
GEC 2;Lesson 5
 DIGITAL SELF
Almost two-thirds of the
It has only been 25 years
world's population now
since Tim Berners - Lee
has a mobile phone. More
made the World Wide
than half of the world's
Web available to the
web traffic now comes
public, but in that time,
from mobile phones.
the internet has already
More than half of all
become an integral part of
mobile connections
everyday life for the most
around the world are now
of the world's population.
"broad band.“
 DIGITAL SELF
Media users in the
Philippines grew by 12
million or 25% while
More than one in five of the number of mobile
More than half the
the world's population social users increased
world now uses a
online in the past 30 by 13 million or 32%.
smartphone.
days. Those growth figures
are still higher
compared to the
previous year.
 DIGITAL SELF

Meanwhile
ONLINE PARTIAL
persona is the
IDENTITY is IDENTITY is a
partial identity
the sum of our subset of
we create that
characteristics characteristics
represents
and our that make up our
ourselves in a
interaction. identity.
specific situation.
Selective Self-Presentation and Impression
Management
According to
Goffman (1959) and
To construct positive
Leary (1995), self-
images, individuals
presentation is the
selectively provide
"Process of
information about
Controlling how one
them and carefully
is Perceived by other
cater this information
people" and is the key
in response to other's
to relationship
feedback.
Selective Self-Presentation and Impression
Management

1 2 3
Anything PERSONAL SOCIAL
posted online IDENTITY is IDENTITY is
should be the interpersonal the level of self
level of self whereby the
considered
which individual is
"Public" no differentiates the identified by his
matter what individual as or her group
• BELK (2013) explained that sharing ourselves is
no longer new and has been practiced as soon as
human being formed. Digital devices help us
share information broadly, now than ever before.
In older Family albums, the photographer was not
often represented in the album (Mendelson and
Papacharissi 2011), whereas with arm’s length
photos, they are necessarily included.
• As Schwarz (2012) mentioned, we have entered an
extraordinary era of self-portraiture. Blogs and web pages
have been continually used for greater self-reflection and self-
presentation Facebook and other social media application are
now a key part of self-presentation for one sixth of humanity.
As a result, researchers, and participants become concerned
with activity managing identity and reputation and to warn
against the phenomenon of "over sharing".
• Many teenagers, as well as adults, share even more intimate details with their partners like
their passwords (Gershon 2010). This could be an ultimate act of intimacy and trust or the
ultimate expression of paranoia and distrust with partners. This condition has been called
"Fear of Missing Out". People would like to remain updated, and they keep on sharing
themselves online because it adds a sense of confidence at their end especially if others like
and share their post. One of the reasons for so much sharing and self-disclosure online is
the so called "Disinhibition Effect” (Ridley 2012: Suler 2004.) the lack of face-to-face
gaze-meeting, together with feelings of anonymity and invisibility, gives people the
freedom for self-disclosure but can also “flame” others and may cause conflict sometimes.
The resulting disinhibition causes people to believe that they can express their “true self”
better online than they ever could in face-to-face context [Taylor 2002].
• However, it does not mean that there is a fixed
“true self.” The self is still a work in progress,
and we keep on improving and developing
ourselves every single day.
• Seemingly self-revelation can be therapeutic to
others especially if it goes together with self-
reflection (Morris et al. 2010.) But it does appear
• “Who are you” and “What do
you have to share?”, it is up to
us if we are going to provide
answers to such questions/
queries every time we use the
internet and do what extent are
going to share details
ourselves to others.
• Many of us share the bad, embarrassing, and lustful things we experience.
We also react and comment on the negative experiences of others. Sometimes
we empathize with people. We also argue w/ others online. Relationships
may be made stronger or broken through posts online. Blogs and social
media are the primary digital for a on which such confessions, occur, but
they can also be found in photo- and video sharing sites where blunders and
bad moments are also preserved and shared (Strangelove 2011). According to
M. Foucault, confessing our secret truths feels freeing, even as it binds us in
a guilt-motivated self-governance born of a long history.
• According to Foucault`s (1998) Confession along with contemplation,
self-examination learning, reading, and writing self- critical letters to
friends, are a part of the “technologies of the self” through which we seek
to purge and cleanse ourselves. Despite the veil of invisibility, writers on
the internet write for an unseen audience (Serfaty 2004). Both the number
and feedback of readers provide self-validation for the writer and a certain
celebrity (O` Regan 2009). Confessional blogs may also be therapeutic for
the audience to read, allowing both. Sincere empathy and the voyeuristic
appeal of witnessing a public confession (Kitzmann 2003).
• Thus, we should have a filtering system to whatever
information we share online, as well as to what
information we believe in, w/c are being shared or
posted by others online. In the same way, we should
also think before we post or share in order to prevent
conflict, arguments, and cyber bullying and to preserve
our relationships w/ others.
Gender and Sexuality Online

•According to Marwick (2013), the term “sex”,

“gender” and “sexuality” are often thought of as
synonymous, they are actually quite distinct. The
differences b/w the common understandings of these
terms and how researchers think about them yield
insights about the social functioning of gender.
Gender and Sexuality Online
• SEX is the biological state that corresponds to what we might
call a “man” or a “woman”. While “sex” is often explained as
biological, fixed, and immutable, it is actually socially
constructed (West and Zimmerman 1987).
• Gender- is the social understanding of how sex should be
experienced and how sex manifests in behavior, personality,
preferences, capabilities and so forth. A person with male sex
organs is expected to embody a muscular gender.
Gender and Sexuality Online
• While sex and gender are presumed to be biologically connected, we
can understand a socio culturally specific set of norms that are mapped
onto a category of “sex” (Kessler and Mc Kenna 1978, Lorber 1994).
Gender is historical. It is produced by media and popular culture. It is
taught by families, schools, peer groups, and nations states (Goffman
1977). It is reinforced through songs, sayings, admonition, slang,
language, fashion, and discourse (Cameron 1998; Cameron and Kulick
2003), and it is deeply ingrained.
Gender and Sexuality Online

•Sexuality is an individual expression

and understanding of desire. While like
gender, this is often viewed as binary
(homosexual or heterosexual), in reality,
sexuality is often experienced as fluid.
 Performing Gender Online
According to the disembodiment
Theorist Judith Butler hypothesis, Internet users are free to
actively choose which gender or
(1990) conceptualized sexuality they are going to portray with
gender as a performance. the possibility of creating alternate
identities (Wynn and Katz 1997).
She argued that gender Social Media sites like Twitter and
was performative in that YouTube have led to the emergence of
a “free culture” where individuals are
it is produced through empowered to engage to engage in
millions of individual cultural production using raw
materials, ranging from homemade
actions rather than videos to mainstream television
something that comes characters to create new culture of
memes, mashups, and creative political
naturally to men and activism allows for civic engagement
Setting Boundaries to your Online Self:
Smart Sharing
• The ff. guidelines will help you share
information online in a smart way that will
protect yourself and not harm others. Before
posting or sharing anything online, consider the
ff.
• 1. Is this post / story necessary
•
Setting Boundaries to your Online Self: Smart
Sharing
3. Have we (as a family or parent/ child) resolved this issue? An
issue that is still being worked out at home, or one that is either
vulnerable or highly emotional, should not be made public.

4. Is it appropriate? Does it stay within the boundaries of our

family values?

5. Will this seem as funny in 5, 10, 15 yrs.? Or is this post better

suited for sharing with a small group of family members? Or
maybe not at all?
Rules to Follow
• ere are additional guidelines for proper sharing of information and ethical use of the Internet
according to New (2014)
• Stick to safer sites
• Guard your passwords
• Limit what you share
• Remember that anything you put online post on a site is there forever, even if you try to delete
it.
• Do not be mean or embarrass other people online.
• Always tell if you see strange or bad behavior online. Be choosy about your online friends.
• Be patient