LESSON 6: DIGITAL SELF: WHO I AM IN THE CYBER WORLD?

These days, more people are becoming active in using the internet for research,
pleasure, business, communication, and other purposes. On the other hand, people assume
different identities while in the cyberspace. People act differently when they are online and
offline. We have a real identity and online identity.

It has only been 25 years since Tim Berners - Lee made the World Wide Web available
to the public, but in that time, the internet has already become an integral part of everyday life
for the most of the world's population.
Almost two-thirds of the world's population now has a mobile phone. More than half of
the world's web traffic now comes from mobile phones. More than half of all mobile connections
around the world are now "broad band." More than one in five of the world's population online in
the past 30 days.
Media users in the Philippines grew by 12 million or 25% while the number of mobile
social users increased by 13 million or 32%. Those growth figures are still higher compared to
the previous year. More than half the world now uses a smartphone.

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 Based on Figure, the number of digital users worldwide increases. More people are
becoming interested and devoted in using the Internet for various activities. In Philippines,
adolescents are among the most avid users of the internet.

ONLINE IDENTITY is actually the sum of our characteristics and our interaction.
PARTIAL IDENTITY is a subset of characteristics that make up our identity. Meanwhile persona
is the partial identity we create that represents ourselves in a specific situation.

Selective Self-Presentation and Impression Management

According to Goffman (1959) and Leary (1995), self-presentation is the "Process of
Controlling how one is Perceived by other people" and is the key to relationship inception and
development. To construct positive images, individuals selectively provide information about
them and carefully cater this information in response to other's feedback.
Anything posted online should be considered "Public" no matter what our "Privacy"
setting are. PERSONAL IDENTIT is the interpersonal level of self which differentiates the
individual as unique from others. SOCIAL IDENTITY is the level of self whereby the individual is
identified by his or her group membership.
BELK (2013) explained that sharing ourselves is no longer new and has been practiced
as soon as human being formed. Digital devices help us share information broadly, now than
ever before. In older Family albums, the photographer was not often represented in the album
(Mendelson and Papacharissi 2011), whereas with arm's- length photos, they are necessarily
included.

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 As Schwarz (2012) mentioned, we have entered an extraordinary era of self- portraiture.
Blogs and web pages have been continually used for greater self-reflection and self-
presentation Facebook and other social media application are now a key part of self-
presentation for one sixth of humanity. As a result, researchers and participants become
concerned with activity managing identity and reputation and to warn against the phenomenon
of "over sharing".
Many teenagers, as well as adults, share even more intimate details with their partners
like their passwords (Gershon 2010). This could be an ultimate act of intimacy and trust or the
ultimate expression of paranoia and distrust with partners. This condition has been called "Fear
of Missing Out". People would like to remain updated and they keep on sharing themselves
online because it adds a sense of confidence at their end especially if others like and share their
post.
One of the reasons for so much sharing and self-disclosure online is the so called
"Disinhibition Effect” (Ridley 2012: Suler 2004.) the lack of face-to-face gaze-meeting, together
with feelings of anonymity and invisibility, gives people the freedom for self- disclosure but can
also “flame” others and may cause conflict sometimes. The resulting disinhibition causes people
to believe that they are able to express their “true self” better online than they ever could in face-
to-face context [Taylor 2002]. However, it does not mean that there is a fixed “true self.” The self
is still a work in progress and we keep on improving and developing ourselves every single day.
Seemingly self-revelation can be therapeutic to others especially if it goes together with self-
reflection (Morris et al. 2010.) But it does appear that we now do a large amount of our identity
work online.
When the Internet constantly asks us “Who are you” and “What do you have to share?”,
it is up to us if we are going to provide answers to such questions/ queries every time we use
the internet and do what extent are going to share details ourselves to others.
Many of us share the bad, embarrassing and lustful things we experience. We also react
and comment on the negative experiences of others. Sometimes we empathize with people. We
also argue w/ others online. Relationships may be made stronger or broken through posts
online. Blogs and Social Media are the primary digital for a on which such confessions, occur,
but they can also be found in photo- and video sharing sites where blunders and bad moments
are also preserved and shared (Strangelove 2011). According to M. Foucault, confessing our
secret truths feels freeing, even as it binds us in a guilt-motivated self-governance born of a long
history.
According to Foucault`s (1998) Confession along with contemplation, self- examination,

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learning, reading, and writing self- critical letters to friends, are a part of the “technologies of the
self” through which we seek to purge and cleanse ourselves.
Despite the veil of invisibility, writers on the internet write for an unseen audience
(Serfaty 2004). Both the number and feedback of readers provide self validation for the writer
and a certain celebrity (O` Regan 2009). Confessional blogs may also be therapeutic for the
audience to read; allowing both. Sincere empathy and the voyeuristic appeal of witnessing a
public confession (Kitzmann 2003).
Thus, we should have a filtering system to whatever information we share online, as well
as to what information we believe in, w/c are being shared or posted by others online. In the
same way, we should also think before we post or share in order to prevent conflict, arguments,
and cyber bullying and to preserve our relationships w/ others.

Gender and Sexuality Online

According to Marwick (2013), the term “sex”, “gender” and “sexuality” are often thought
of as synonymous, they are actually quite distinct. The differences b/w the common
understandings of these terms and how researchers think about them yield insights about the
social functioning of gender.
SEX is the biological state that corresponds to what we might call a “man” or a “woman”.
While “sex” is often explained as biological, fixed, and immutable, it is actually socially
constructed (West and Zimmerman 1987). Gender- is the social understanding of how sex
should be experienced and how sex manifests in behavior, personality, preferences,
capabilities and so forth. A person with male sex organs is expected to embody a muscular
gender. While sex and gender are presumed to be biologically connected, we can understand a
socio culturally specific set of norms that are mapped onto a category of “sex” (Kessler and Mc
Kenna 1978, Lorber 1994). Gender is historical. It is produced by media and popular culture. It
is taught by families, schools, peer groups, and nations states (Goffman 1977). It is reinforced
through songs, sayings, admonition, slang, language, fashion, and discourse (Cameron 1998;
Cameron and Kulick 2003), and it is deeply ingrained.
Sexuality is an individual expression and understanding of desire. While like gender, this
is often viewed as binary (homosexual or heterosexual), in reality, sexuality is often experienced
as fluid.

Performing Gender Online

Theorist Judith Butler (1990) conceptualized gender as a performance. She argued that gender

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was performative in that it is produced through millions of individual actions rather than
something that comes naturally to men and women. According to the disembodiment
hypothesis, Internet users are free to actively choose which gender or sexuality they are going
to portray with the possibility of creating alternate identities (Wynn and Katz 1997).
Social Media sites like Twitter and YouTube have led to the emergence of a “free
culture” where individuals are empowered to engage to engage in cultural production using raw
materials, ranging from homemade videos to mainstream television characters to create new
culture of memes, mash-ups, and creative political activism allows for civic engagement and fun
creative acts. While Digg, 4chan, and Reddit are used mostly by men, most social network site
users are women; this is true in Facebook, Flickr, Live Journal, Tumblr, Twitter, and Youtube
(Chappell 2011; Lenhart 2009; Lenhart et al.2010)

Setting Boundaries to your Online Self: Smart Sharing

The ff. guidelines will help you share information online in a smart way that will protect
yourself and not harm others. Before posting or sharing anything online, consider the ff.
1) Is this post / story necessary
2) Is there a real benefit to this post? Is it funny, warm- hearted, teachable-or am I just
making noise online without purpose?
3) Have we (as a family or parent/ child) resolved this issue? An issue that is still being
worked out at home, or one that is either vulnerable or highly emotional, should not be
made public.
4) Is it appropriate? Does it stay within the boundaries of our family values?
5) Will this seem as funny in 5, 10, 15 yrs.? Or is this post better suited for sharing with a
small group of family members? Or maybe not at all?

Rules to Follow
Here are additional guidelines for proper sharing of information and ethical use of the
Internet according to New (2014)
 Stick to safer sites
 Guard your passwords
 Limit what you share
 Remember that anything you put online post on a site is there forever, even if you try to
delete it.
 Do not be mean or embarrass other people online.

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 Always tell if you see strange or bad behavior online.
 Be choosy about your online friends.
 Be patient

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