Understanding Digital Self and Online Identity

Questions and Answers

Online Recklessness

The act of demeaning oneself in the online space

By facilitating self-obsession and self-absorption

<p>Extreme loneliness and anxiety</p> Signup and view all the answers

<p>By communicating thoughts through various means like emoticons, gifs, and words</p> Signup and view all the answers

Study Notes

Recent decade has introduced developments that have created a significant impact on our lives.
Examples of these developments include:
- Internet
- Social Networking Sites
- Text Message or Short Message Service
- Smart Phones
- Applications
- You Tube
- Blogs/Vlogs
- Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing
- World Wide Web
- Email
- Chat rooms
- Online shopping
- Dating Sites
- GPS (Global Positioning System)
- Wifi or Wireless Network
- Game Consoles (Play Stations, Wii etc)

Individuals have an interest in creating an identity that may be different from their real-life persona.
The digital web provides the best avenue to achieve this fresh change anytime we desire to engage and eventually disengage.

Disconnectedness: The increasing use of gadgets and presence in social media results in being disconnected from people around us.
Online Recklessness: The online world provides an opportunity to express oneself through various forms of communication.
Digital Self-Harm: Almost 6% of adolescents between 12-17 years practice digital self-harm by demeaning themselves online to validate their insecurities and weaknesses.
Contribute to a Declining Mental Health: Severe exposure and engagement in the digital world can result in extreme loneliness and anxiety, especially in teens.
Self Obsession: Content exposure to the online world has increased the incidence of narcissism, making individuals self-obsessed and self-absorbed.

Developing and Nurturing Virtual Relationships: Social networking sites allow individuals to gain thousands of friends and create virtual relationships.
Distorted Identity Formation: The digital world offers the opportunity to create multiple identities.

Personal Identity: The interpersonal level of self that differentiates an individual as unique from others.
Social Identity: The level of self whereby the individual is identified by their group memberships.
Online Identity: The sum of characteristics and interactions represented online, resulting from different interactions with each website visited.

The online identity is not the same as the real-world identity because the characteristics they represent online differ from those in the physical world.