Kaveri Subrahmanyam

Constructing Identity Online: Identity Exploration and Self-Presentation

From the early days of the Internet, scholars and writers have speculated that digital worlds are venues where users can leave their bodies behind and create new and different selves online. These speculations take on added significance in the context of adolescence, when individuals have to construct a coherent identity of the self. This chapter examines the role of technology in identity construction – a key adolescent developmental task. We begin by examining theoretical conceptions about identity in the context of adolescence and then explore the meaning of the terms self-presentation and virtual identity. To show how adolescents’ use technology in the service of identity, we will first describe some of the online tools they can use for self-presentation and identity construction. Then we show how adolescents use these tools to explore identity on the Internet, particularly through blogs and social networking sites; in a separate section, we show how youth use the Internet to construct their ethnic identity. Last, we turn to whether adolescents’ engage in identity experiments and online pretending and whether they have virtual personas in a psychological sense. In the conclusion section, we identify questions about online self-presentation, virtual identity, offline identity development for future research to address.

A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words: A Mixed Methods Study of Online Self-Presentation in a Multiethnic Sample of Emerging Adults

Using a mixed methods approach, this study examined the meanings that emerging adults (N = 261; 195 women, 66 men; M age≈22 years old) ascribed to their online self-presentation. A thematic analysis based on 761 Facebook photo descriptions and 714 wall posts and status updates revealed that these emerging adults presented their individual, social, gender, ethnic, and spiritual identities as well as their positive, neutral, and negative affective states online. Individual and social identities were presented more frequently than other types of identities, and were linked to positive and negative affective states. The emerging adult women presented their social and gender identities in their photos more frequently, whereas the men presented their individual identity more often. When presenting their individual identity, women disclosed positive states more frequently whereas men disclosed neutral states more often. Latino American participants presented their individual identity less frequently than their Asian and European American peers, whereas Asian American participants presented their gender identity less frequently than their Latino and European American peers. When presenting their individual and social identities, Asian American participants disclosed neutral states more frequently and positive states less frequently than their Latino and European American peers. Findings have implications for the psychosocial development of emerging adults from ethnically diverse backgrounds, as well as for theory and research about self-development within online contexts.

Internet Use and Well-Being: Physical and Psychological Effects

The second part of the book starting with this chapter looks at the practical implications of young people’s interactions with technology. This chapter takes an in-depth look into how adolescents’ online activities influence their well-being. First, it suggests some of the different pathways by which the Internet might mediate well-being. Then, it examines the direct and indirect effects of technology on physical well-being. Some of the direct effects include the potential for physical injuries, physiological arousal; indirect effects include the relation between technology use and obesity and sleep patterns. In the final section, the chapter describes extant research on the relation between Internet use and psychological well-being and the factors (e.g., user characteristics, kind of online activity) that mediate this relation. Two other important issues that we address are short-term effects and the effect of negative interactions on well-being. Throughout, we emphasize the important of education to ensure that youth use technology in ways that will enhance their well-being.

Intimacy and the Internet: Relationships with Friends, Romantic Partners, and Family Members

Digital communication tools, such as email, instant messaging, text messaging, games, and social networking sites are very popular among adolescents. Youth use them to interact and communicate with their peers as well as their family members. In this chapter, we explore the role of technology in the third task facing adolescents: that of developing intimacy and interconnections with the people in their lives. We consider the mediating role of technology in three important relationships in young people’s lives: friendships and peer group relationships, romantic relationships (dating), and relationships within the family. First, we describe their use of online contexts to interact with their friends and other peers. Because of concerns about purely online friendships, we examine separately their online interactions with offline friends and acquaintances as well as their online relationships with peers, who are not part of their offline world, and the quality of such purely online relationships. Then we describe adolescents’ online romantic relationships, and reflecting extant research, will focus on those that are purely online. The final section will describe technology and teens’ relationships with their family, with a special emphasis on how teens’ status as the technology expert may be altering traditional family dynamics and relationships. The chapter concludes by raising questions about whether adolescents’ online interactions with their peers may transform their friendships and disrupt their family relationships.

A Second Life Within Second Life: Are Virtual World Users Creating New Selves and New Lives?

Virtual worlds such as Second Life (SL) are online computer-based world-like spaces, where users assume virtual selves or avatars to interact with others, create objects, and engage in a variety of transactions. This paper examines SL residents’ avatars, activities, and the relation between residents’ offline characteristics and online avatars and activities. The authors examined whether there was a relationship between residents’ identity style and online beliefs and activities, specifically those related to self-presentation and identity exploration via avatars and relationship formation as they are related to one’s sense of self. An online survey of 378 SL residents was conducted, who ranged in age from 18 to 69 years. Respondents were asked to complete an SL survey (containing questions about their avatars, use, and activities within SL) and the Identity style inventory sixth grade reading level (ISI-6G). Results suggested that SL avatars were mostly human, and were of the same gender as the residents’ offline self; SL activities were similar to every day offline ones. The study suggests SL residents may not be creating second lives within this virtual world, but are instead bringing elements of their first or offline lives into this online context.

The Darker Sides of the Internet: Violence, Cyber Bullying, and Victimization

This chapter focuses on the darker sides of the Internet and other technologies – their potential for violence, aggression, and victimization of young people. Concerns about violent media content are not new, and research on earlier visual media forms such as television and films and that on newer interactive media such as video games reveals that violent media content does lead to increases in violent and aggressive behavior. In addition to providing access to content, new digital media provide opportunities for interactions and consequently pose new challenges, such as aggressive and hostile interactions at the hands of peers and adults. This chapter examines the many different forms of online violence and aggression. After reviewing the findings of extant research on violence in media (e.g., television, video games, etc.), the chapter focuses on three categories of online aggression: (1) violence in web sites and other online content, (2) interactive online games with violent content, (3) online interactions that are aggression-tinged, including cyber bullying and online sexual solicitation and victimization. For each category, we describe the online landscape or interaction and then examine its impact on adolescents’ lives.

Connecting Online Behavior to Adolescent Development: A Theoretical Framework

Adolescence is a period of tremendous change and many view it as a period of “storm and stress.” Although we now know that adolescence is not always a turbulent period, the storm and stress view, has come to frame questions about the role of interactive technologies in adolescent development, the focus of this book. In this chapter, we present the developmental approach that we use throughout the book to examine the role of digital media in adolescent development. The first part of the chapter reviews some of the lessons learnt from developmental psychology. We briefly describe three core adolescent developmental issues – sexuality, identity, and intimacy – around which the first part of this book is organized. Then we argue that we must treat digital worlds as another social context for adolescent development along the lines of familiar ones such as families, peers, and schools. The second part of the chapter examines the role of digital media during adolescence and presents our co-construction model of adolescents’ online behavior, which suggests that adolescents’ online and offline worlds are psychologically connected. Consequently, adolescents may bring the issues and people from their offline worlds to their online ones. We discuss the implications of our co-construction model for understanding the role of digital media in young people’s development.

Digital Worlds and Doing the Right Thing: Morality, Ethics, and Civic Engagement

We examine the role of technology as adolescents deal with the developmental task of constructing a moral and ethical set of values and becoming fully engaged, active members of their communities. Digital technologies such as the Internet and cell phone are both a tool and a social context and adolescents must learn to use them safely, securely, and legally. As a tool, the Internet provides youth with access to information, but youth also use it for plagiarism and to illegally download and share movies, music, and software. As a social context, the Internet allows adolescents to interact with peers and strangers, to participate in online communities, and to engage with their local and more distant communities. Online worlds also come with their own rules, etiquette, and social conventions and youth must learn to navigate them in ways that may at times be at odds with offline moral and ethical values. The first part of the chapter explores some of these complexities in relation to adolescents’ developing sense of morality and ethics online and addresses the following topics: (1) maintaining privacy online (2) falsifying information online (3) online cheating and stealing (4) cyber plagiarism (5) software piracy and illegal downloading of music, movies, and software. The second part of the chapter examines how youth use technology to engage with their communities, including local, national, and even global ones.

Sexuality on the Internet: Sexual Exploration, Cybersex, and Pornography

Sexuality as a developmental issue is present throughout the life cycle, but becomes especially salient during adolescence. Adolescents have to adjust to their developing sexuality, in particular their increased sexual drive and interest in sex and have the task of constructing their sexual selves. Sexual content and topics feature prominently in adolescents’ online lives from chat rooms, to bulletin boards, and in adolescents’ online conversations, including well-publicized instances of sexting. In this chapter, we show how young people use the Internet to deal with their developing sexuality. We begin by highlighting important aspects of this adolescent developmental issue and then examine the characteristics of online environments that support sexual activities more generally. The rest of the chapter will describe adolescents’ online sexual exploration, from the construction of their sexual self to their access of sexually explicit content. Because most of the research on adolescents’ online sexual exploration is silent on the issue of gay and lesbian youth, we consider the potential role of the Internet for sexual minority youth separately. Even though age and gender trends in adolescents’ online explorations parallel offline ones, we will show that online behaviors are not identical to offline ones, as they adapt their behaviors to the characteristic of online environments.

Adolescents’ Digital Worlds: Conclusions and Future Steps

Today’s youth, as digital natives, have lived virtually their entire lives surrounded by digital media, especially computers and the Internet. Not surprisingly, their interactions with technology have raised questions and concerns. Research has begun to uncover the many different ways that technology intersects young people’s lives. Our goal for this book was to sift through this body of work and present a balanced and comprehensive account of youth digital worlds and their implications for adolescent development. In this concluding chapter, we revisit some of the themes encountered throughout the book, consider their implications, and identify questions and gaps in our understanding that future research must address. In particular, we examine the role of digital media in development, summarize findings that provide support for our contention that young people’s offline and online worlds are psychologically connected, clarify and consider the implications of such connectedness.