Social media can have both positive and negative impacts on a user's identity. Scholars within the fields of psychology and communication study the relationship between social media and identity in order to understand individual behavior, psychological impacts, and social patterns. Communication within political or social groups online can result in practical application, real-world implementation of a concept, of those found identities or the adoption of them as a whole. Young people, defined as emerging adults in or entering college, are especially likely to have their identities shaped by social media.
Young adults Young adults are especially influenced by social media, where they find social groups to belong to.
Research shows that nearly half of teens believe social media platforms has a negative impact on people their age. Psychologists believe that at a time when young adults are coming into adolescence, they are more likely to be influenced by what they see on sites like Instagram or Twitter. Most young adults will widely share, with varying degrees of accuracy, honesty, and openness, information that in the past would have been private or reserved for select individuals. Key questions include whether they accurately portray their identities online and whether the use of social media might impact young adults' identity development. Media Imagery, in particular, is said to be a major influence on the minds of young men and women. Studies have shown that it is even more relevant when it comes to the issue of body image. Social media, in part, has been created to host a safe haven for those who do not claim a solid identity in the material world, but past identities are not easy to escape from since the Internet preserves much of the information that was shared.
Social media is an essential part of the social lives of young adults. They rely on it to maintain relationships, create new relationships, and stay up to date with the world around them. Adolescents find social media to be extremely helpful when changing environments, like moving off to university for example. Social media provides students, especially first year students, the opportunity to create the identity they want the world to see. However, it has been seen that these students create online personas that may not reflect their true selves bringing up the issues of impression management. Social media provides young adults with the opportunity to present themselves as something other than their authentic self.
Media literacy The definition of media literacy has evolved over time to encompass a range of experiences that can occur in social media or other digital spaces. The definition of media literacy is also broad and wide ranging in its context.
Currently, media literacy is the idea that one is able to analyze, evaluate, and interact with media content in a meaningful way. Educators teach media literacy skills because of the vulnerable relationship that young adults can have with social media. Some examples of media literacy practices, particularly on Twitter, include using hashtags, live tweeting, and sharing information. One of the overall goals of media literacy within the context of social media is to keep young adults aware of potentially violent, graphic, or dangerous content that they may come across on the internet, and how to determine if the content is credible while engaging responsibly with it.
In order to be considered media-literate, a person must be able to take in media from online and social platforms and have the correct competencies and context to be able to organize the information. In order to be considered media-literate, the digital information must be given to the user in a way that it can be put into the correct perspective and analyzed, deducted and synthesized.Teenagers and young adults can be vulnerable to specific content online outside of their age-range. Media literacy campaigns and education research shows that targeting those who fall into this age category would be the best way to understand and target their needs as young online users.
There are multiple individual studies investigating social media identity relating to media literacy online, however there is a need for much more conclusive information that analyzes multiple studies at a time. Social media literacy is still considered an under-researched topic. Many scholars in media literacy research emphasize the impact of training young adults to consume media in a safe way is the major solution for furthering internet education in children and young adults. The more information the young adults are given on media literacy, the better prepared they are to enter the digital world confidently.
One scientific model that has been proposed, known as The Social Media Literacy (SMILE) model is a framework that hypothesizes that at the core of this model it is helping young adults truly know the meaning and display the actions of media literacy online. SMILE is also meant to inspire more research on the subject of media literacy as it relates to social media effects and young adult learning abilities. The model was applied through the lens of a social media positivity bias among adolescents and puts forth five different assumptions about social media and media literacy;
Social media literacy as a moderator (what is seen on social media) Social media literacy as a predictor (what is seen for specific individuals on social media) Media literacy within social media is a reciprocal process The development of social media literacy depends on a conditional process of variables affecting other variables Media literacy within social media is a differential learning process, and who teaches it is highly affective of the outcome
This model also stresses that human beings learn media literacy (and social media literacy) naturally as they go through life. Research suggests that having young adults taught media literacy from an educator may make them less interested (and therefore less careful) of threats on social media.
Self Presentation People create images of themselves to present to the public, a process called self presentation. Depending on the demographic, presenting oneself as authentic can result in identity clarity. Methods of self presentation can also be influenced by geography. The framework for this relationship between a user's location and their social media presentation is called the spatial self. Users depict their spatial self in order to include their physical space as a part of their self presentation to an audience.
According to a 2018 research paper, patients of plastic surgeons have gone in and asked for specific snapchat "filter" features. This led to a theory of Snapchat Dysmorphia. Since the introduction to snapchat in 2011, more and more people each year are going into doctor offices and asking for smoother skin, bigger eyes, and fuller lips. It is creating a disconnect from who they are and who they want to be.
Social comparison theory is the idea that people are likely to compare themselves to people who are similar to them. Influencers have impacted this idea, we often watch people on the internet that we feel we can relate too. Within this theory there is 2 subcategories; Upward and downward comparison. Upward comparison is the idea that someone compares themselves to someone they feel is better than they are. Downward is the opposite, they compare themselves to someone they feel is worse off.
Cultivation theory is the more often people are going to be exposed to images of society's ideal body, the less they are going to realize the images are unrealistic
Self Schema Theory is the idea women use three points to determine how they view themself
Socially ideal: ideal ways women are represented in media Objective body: how we view our own self Internalized ideal body: Internalizing media and how much they want to achieve it.
The Female Identity For centuries, women have been a social minority in a male-dominated society. Feminists have taken measures to prove that there is more to the female identity than good looks or the ability to reproduce children. These efforts to raise awareness and make change have been made more efficient with the rise of social media. Social media is not only used to share information, but people also use social media as a means of self-expression. Social networking allows people to find others with similar values and grow a community that respects, understands, and accepts their identity.
Social media is also an environment that harbors discrimination, even among relatives and peers, who may not agree with aspects of someone’s identity. Therefore, multiple social media platforms exist, each with their own unique design, for the purpose of sharing different aspects of one’s identity, sometimes even anonymously.
Women’s online identities often rely heavily on physical appearance rather than personality and moral values. Women are expected to look attractive in order to be successful on social media, and the level of attractiveness is most often defined by traditional Western standards of beauty. People who do not conform to such standards risk being harassed and body shamed on social media, even if such standards are impossible to meet. This discrimination and expectation of holding such standards can be harmful, leading to depression, disorders, and self-loathing among women, particularly black women, whose physical appearance may contrast greatly from Western standards.
Studies have demonstrated that body image is not necessarily influenced by how much time is spent on social media, but is influenced by the way an individual engages with the site. For instance, Meier and Gray (2014), measured Facebook usage among young women and found that those who more frequently viewed posts of images and videos were more likely to experience negative thoughts about their own body image and internalize the thin ideal. However, it is seen that Facebook did not influence body image itself. More interacting on Facebook, in regards to posting, commenting and viewing, causes women, specifically high school females to have greater weight dissatisfaction, drive for thinness, thin-ideal internalization and self objectification. The opportunity to compare one's body to those of others on social media can cause people to feel like they should look a certain way. Facebook posts more than 10 million photos an hour, so having many examples of an idealistic body-type tempts viewers to compare their bodies to their own.
Studies have shown that users can also experience feelings of body dissatisfaction when consuming rather than creating content. In a study conducted by Fardouly, et al. (2015), the implications of Facebook usage on young women's mood, level of body dissatisfaction, and desires to change aspects of their body or facial features were examined. The results of the study indicated that in addition to Facebook usage being associated with a more negative mood, it was associated with an increasing desire to change facial related features in women who were more likely to make comparisons between elements of their and others appearance.