As it comes to social media today, you can allow people to see as much or as little of your life that you please and are able to create your online identity. By being able to create any image that you please on social media, this can allow people to show their true colors or allow them to create a completely different image of who they are. I think there are both positives and negatives to this. Positive being people can show people their amazing lives and it makes it way easier to get to know and meet people. Negatives being that people can create fakes images and online lives that arent realistic to their lifestyles.
According to authors Wängqvist & Frisén the growth and development of our identity as human is just as dependent online now a days as it is offline. Something that really resognated with me in this reading is “young people strive to find contexts where they can experiment with new abilities, values, and ideals, and this may require both psychological and physical distance from parents and other authority figures” (Wängqvist & Frisén, 2016). I think this holds to be very true in the fact that our internet identities give both teens and adults the opportunities get away from “ real life” in a sense. Though social media accounts tend to be good representation of a person this outlet is still something that help people escape everyday reality. I think in the day in age we live in, it is just important to establish your identity online as it is in person.
The Bozkurt & Tu writing dives into to answer the question “How can social networks impact learning through digital identity formation?” These social networks impact how we learn and view things in a huge way. Often these profiles and images that we create online, don't represent what our real lives are like. For example when someone online only posts pictures of them when they are travelling or in other states in countries, viewers will think that traveling is an every weekend thing for them, when they really only do it a few times a year. When we set out to create our social identity it can be hard to exactly depict who we are to the people viewing these posts. I think it is important to keep this in mind when creating these idenitites in order to truly try and represent ourselves in a similar way.
In Alec Couros’ TED talk he dives into how to find the propper balance of showing kids the powers and amazing features of the internet while still creating their offline identities and sharing this with other people. The asset that social media and the internet has become in our modern society is something that cannot be denied. It has opened up doors and outlets for people of all ages to be able to find jobs, market products, and connect people socially. By creating an online identity at a young age, it is important to create a separation of the internet being more of a tool and asset than it is your complete identity. The internet is a tool that can help show the world who you are, but it will never describe you perfectly. Finding this healthy balance is a hard thing to do these days and is something I find very interesting.
