Cultural Identity and the Internet

Understanding Cultural Identity: A Comprehensive Overview

• Cultural identity is a part of a person's identity and is related to nationality, ethnicity, religion, social class, generation, locality, or any kind of social group that has its own distinct culture.

• Cultural identity is a fluid process that is changed by different social, cultural, and historical experiences.

• There are three pieces that make up a person's cultural identity: cultural knowledge, category label, and social connections.

• Culture is a term that is highly complex and often contested with academics recording about 160 variations in meaning.

• Identity is a defining feature of a person's identity, contributing to how they see themselves and the groups with which they identify.

• Language, education, and the cultural arena impact cultural identity and are all important factors in shaping identity.

• Biculturalism, the combination of a strong ethnic and a strong national identity, yields the best adaptation in the new country of residence.

• Cultural identity achievement is characterized by a clear, confident acceptance of oneself and an internalization of one's cultural identity.

• Cultural identity development among immigrant groups has been studied across a multi-dimensional view of acculturation.

• The Jean S. Phinney Three-Stage Model of Ethnic Identity Development is a widely accepted view of the formation of cultural identity.

• Cultural identity can change depending on the cultural area, and the impact of the cultural arena has changed with the advent of the Internet.

• Language allows for people in the group to discuss their values, beliefs, and customs, all of which help to create cultural identity.The Role of the Internet in Shaping Youth Identity

• The internet merges with youth's home life as another natural element in their lives.

• The internet is where youth learn, engage in active learning, and seek tutorials.

• Youth use the internet to express themselves, share their lives, and receive social approval from peers.

• The internet is where youth experiment with different profiles and negotiate their identity.

• Youth use the internet to shape their identity and make decisions about their insertion, membership, and sociability in the real world.

• The internet is an identity laboratory that both enables young people to explore and perform various roles and personifications and presents a risk to the construction of a stable and viable personal identity.

• Youth ask themselves what they think of themselves, how they see themselves, and how others see them, which shapes their identity.

• The internet has created new fields of research on the effects on teens and young adults.

• The relationship between the real world and the virtual world for youth cannot be understood as a link between two independent and separate worlds.

• Young people may be in the real world while still being connected to the virtual world.

• The internet is becoming an extension of the expressive dimension of the youth condition.

• Youth use the internet to try out profiles differing from those they assume in the real world.