How Does Social Media Define Personal Identity?

DING! The sound of a smartphone going off can signal a variety of notifications: a text from a loved one, a weather alert, an e-mail from a coworker, or perhaps an update from a social media site. Any of these alerts or notifications may be important, but the update from social media has the capability of having the largest effect. In America, a great majority of the population uses social media; sixty-five percent of American adults use a social networking site (Perrin, 2015). Teenagers in America represent an even larger number, with 73 percent of American teens involved in the use of social media (Lenhart, Purcell, Smith, & Zickhur, 2010). On a world-wide level, it has been estimated that a total of 2 billion people, more than one fourth

What a person does is an important part of defining their identity. On social media, a person can act differently from how they may truly be in real life. For example, social media provides a place for users to post or comment without consequences. Maeve Duggan (2015), research associate at the Pew Research Center's Internet Project, states that “nearly one-in-five Americans (eighteen percent) have been subjected to severe forms of harassment online, such as physical threats, harassment over a sustained period, sexual harassment or stalking.” The actions of those performing the harassment become possible through social media. A person’s online personality, such as posts and comments, reflect their personality in real life. When they become threatening or harassing, it has a negative effect on real life and their identity. Social media also influences a users’ actions by becoming an addiction. Problematic social media usage (PMSU) has become a relevant concern in the modern world. PMSU, explained by researches Cecilie Schou Andreassen and Stale Pallesen in a University of Bergen study, is defined as possessing unreasonable amounts of concern over social media and an internal motivational drive to use social media, as well as the act of assigning the majority of time and effort towards the use of social media so that it harms other activities such as relationships, social activity, jobs, and/or psychological health and overall wellbeing (as cited in Shensa et al., 2017). People have the choice of how much time they devote to technology and social media. These users who actively choose to spend the majority of their time on social media let it control their lives, which affects their actions, and most importantly, their identity. It influences them to act in a way that will encourage more use of social media, and discourage other activities and interactions. By letting