Online Profiles and The Ideal Identity Issue

     The first of the aforementioned issues, the establishment of an ideal identity may be the most influential, but is the most difficult to estimate or document and the full effect will not be seen until this generation of teens moves from adolescence into adulthood. Online profiles provide an opportunity for anyone to display an altered reality of their identity. Users may put up only the pictures that they want seen, and pass any information about themselves as truth. They could create a totally fictional identity, although most probably project just an “improved” version of their own identity for the sake of acceptance and approval. On social networks there is time to strategically determine how one is going to represent one’s self.

         Managing an online profile can add confusion to [identity development]; adolescents are already seeking an acceptable identity, and through the use of online profiles, they have the ability to physically create and manipulate the          identity they want to convey to others…Furthermore, social networking profiles act as identity substitutions. Adolescents substitute their true interests with what they believe is socially acceptable and convey the latter information on their online profile (Cowie).

     The maintenance of an ideal identity may stunt the development of an adolescent’s actual identity. At the very least, it will most likely complicate an already complicated stage of life. To a certain extent, the conflict between one’s actual identity and the identity that one wants to be has existed for a long time, however, online profiles have created almost a full proof system that allows for the desired identity to exist safe from reality showing through. In addition, users are able to join groups and associate themselves with specific groups of people. The personal information that users display can be influenced by the groups they want to join and their desired friend associations. This brings me to the second way that social networking could have an impact of identity development in adolescents.