Identity. How many can one have and how does modern social media affect them?
Most people would usually have a definition of identity when writing about it, for me there is no point. Identity is different to everyone and most likely can change daily depending on one’s mood. One’s identity is what they want to make it on any given day.
Upon writing this post I had to think about how others view myself, this got me thinking about all the different perceptions and relationships people would have with me varying on how I know them. Is it a professional workplace relationship, is it a family relationship or is it an online relationship? These all come down to their perception of me and their thoughts on what my role identity is, if you role is being a caring boyfriend one day and being a tough discipline coach of a sporting team the next. These often conflict each other and very rarely can you fully separate your identities from one another especially with social media so widespread these days. Only very few people in my experiences can truly shut off one identity completely and play the other role effectively.
Social media in my view has really impacted on people’s identities, both in a negative and positive way. Personally, I am not a huge fan of social media, I avoid it where possible as I have seen so many people’s lives change according to what their social media channels are “telling them”. As I mention above about people’s role identity, social media gives people a chance to play a different “role” to the one they truly are. Influences and social media stars often are not all they are cut out to be in the real world, giving people false sense of reality in some cases. This can lead to individuals questioning their own identity thinking that someone of similar age has “that lifestyle” all while you are battling away working and studying, this does not go well for some people’s mental health and self of steam. As everything is widely available on social media and even the internet, studies have shown how this can affect young people in many ways, one of them being their perception of the male-female relationship due to the widely accessible content on social media and the internet. Yet again one of many impacting our youth in their upbringing.
I personally had many different identities growing up, I had my sporting identity, my schooling identity, my social media identity and my family identity. They were all separate for a majority of my younger years until social media sites such as Facebook and Instagram become widely known and popular. Once this happened, everyone began to know all identities because people would “tag” you in sports posts, school posts or a family photo.
I want to conclude this post with a question to everyone, how many identities do you see yourself having and do you think social media has affected those identities in a positive or negative way?
