Social Networking

For our group presentation i covered the topic of "Identity" in Social Networking.
I was able to help the group by summarizing how social networking has become a way of experimenting with ones identity in todays culture.


A part of social networking is the ability to share your identity with the world, or those whom your privacy settings allow to view your profile. People have the ability to experiment with their identity through profiles, comments, and “befriending others”. Once a profile is created, these social networking sites have features that you can share such as photo uploading, quotes, status changes, interest, and affiliations. What’s your favorite music, sport ect. Where did you go do school? Who are you friends?
Developing these profiles can get pretty elaborate. How much time people are consuming creating and uploading can be questioned. This has created a way for people to experiment with their identity. “Friend feed back” is often offered by many of these sites, which enables the user to modify and evolve this “created self”. If someone doesn’t like something about your picture, comment, ect. They can just leave you a comment and you can easily change it/take it off.
“Friending” most importantly, has also become a way of experimenting with ones identity. The number of friends one has adds to he identity of that user. The more friends you have, the more popular you are and the more access you are providing people to view and comment on your profile (vise versa) “We live our lives in the contexts of social relationships with others” (barker218) subjectivity & identity.

Social Networking has now become way of experimentation for self and social identity. In Barker’s Chapter 7 Issues and Subjectivity and identity, Gidden describes identity as a “project”. Idenity is our creation, something we “move towards” rather than “arrive at.” Pg217 The evolution of Social Networking and its features, is providing just that.