Group items tagged

After I wrote this column about Facebook I found I had extra bonus thoughts so I decided to put at least a few of them here. When Gawker Media announced that all employees we were required to have Facebook profiles, in 2007, some of my coworkers were decidedly un-thrilled at this encroachment on their private lives.

Talks about how the virtual world is self-controlled. Some people put up things based on reactions they hope to gain from friends. Our identity on Facebook could be close or far away from the truth.

Who am I? How does our development of online identities affect our development of offline identities?

Facebook, a site primarily used by college students and young graduates transitioning into the work force. The outcome of this initial case study is a framework for understanding how users manage self-presentation while maintaining social relationships in heterogeneous networks.

While some interpret popularity to mean ''widely liked,'' or accepted by one's peer group members (Bukowski, 1989), others see it as being ''socially dominant'' (Parkhurst &Hopmeyer, 1998, p. 138). Social network researchers often leave the definition to survey respondents and simply ask: ''Who on this list is popular?'' or they ask ''Who on this list is a friend of yours?''

This piece of work explains reasons why people act so differently online compared to in person.

The present study investigates identity construction on Facebook, a newly emerged nonymous online environment. Based on content analysis of 63 Facebook accounts, we find that the identities produced in this nonymous environment differ from those constructed in the anonymous online environments previously reported. Facebook users predominantly claim their identities implicitly rather than explicitly; they "show rather than tell" and stress group and consumer identities over personally narrated ones. The characteristics of such identities are described and the implications of this finding are discussed.

Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships Early research on online self-presentation mostly focused on identity constructions in anonymous online environments. Such studies found that individuals tended to engage in role-play games and anti-normative behaviors in the online world.