Social media is all around us, with most people these days carrying their phones with them all the time. This means individuals are always carrying around multiple identities. As your identity on your phone is different from your in-person identity. As Goffman says, social life is a performance where individuals present themselves in specific ways to create desired impressions.
Examples of this include how individuals act on different social media apps. For instance, on an app like LinkedIn, people are trying to show their best selves to possible employers. In contrast, on an app like Instagram, people are more likely to show their everyday life, such as travelling and their personal life, trying to look good to whoever views their social media. However, it is important to note how everyone uses social media differently as not everyone uses Instagram for themselves; for example, they may use it for a business. This still means they have different identities and may behave differently and be perceived in a certain way because of what they choose to put online. On Instagram, users especially care how they are perceived, as you see people putting a lot of effort into their posts, such as creating collages. Users do this for the aesthetic while also showing their own lives.
This is a good example of a content creator showing what she has been up to using a collage. She is showing parts of her life that she wants to, such as getting food and being with her cat. She is making her life look aesthetic to her audience. However, we do not know what is happening in her life as Instagram is not a personal app, although some content creators are trying to be more ‘real’ online.
She may choose to act differently on a different platform, such as Twitter, as this is more aesthetically visual, but on Twitter, she may have a different identity, being more vocal about various topics.
Social media allows a person to be whoever they want as they can present themselves however they wish to. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as people may want to express themselves in multiple different ways. It can be compared to how you act differently around friends than family members. Just because you act differently doesn’t mean you are not being authentic to yourself.
It is hard as in today’s media; everyone is obsessed with being ‘real’ and authentic, which in turn is creating non-authentic content. As people are faking being authentic, creating multiple identities, that they have to keep up with. This shows how identities and what they mean are changing, as now you can have many identities depending on context and social cues, making it difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is not. It is important to not focus on what others are thinking and instead focus on being yourself, as that is how people may become lost in social media.
Reference:
Goffman, E., 1959. The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books.
I really enjoyed your line, “everyone is obsessed with being ‘real’ and authentic, which in turn is creating non-authentic content”. I think you are correct in that people want to put off an authentic persona while in return they are being more fake than ever.
Great post! I like how you used the idea of people using instagram for not only personal uses but also for promotional uses such as growing a business, and the way in which regardless of how we are using the site/platform we are always consciously thinking about the user on the other side of the screen viewing our posts and how they are going to judge and respond to the content. I also like how you then linked this to your main idea of your post and how we are constantly having to attempt to keep up with these identities and personas that we promote online and how that may differ compared to our everyday self.