Written Report in

Understanding the Self

(Digital Self)

Badiola, Jane Neleddie A.

Cefriano, Erika M.

De Guzman, Loureese Anne C.

Lampaya, Milen P.

Leosala, Michelle Ann E.

Riesgo, Jasmine Kimberly V.

BSBA MM 1-2
Digital Self

Self in the 21st century is projected into interactive digital media experiences where it

unfolds every facet using a social media or social site platform. In the online world, the

disembodied and anonymous other teenagers interact with constitute what Altheide in his

research calls the “E Audience”, which like those offline world, “invites meaningful participation

and displays of self”. To differentiate it from the self that emerges from face-to-face interactions

with others, I name the self conceived online under the influence of the “E Audience” the

“digital self”. The digital self is constructed solely through online interaction without the

intervention of non-verbal feedback and the influence of traditional environmental factors (Zhao,

2005).

Digital media are any media that are encoded in machine-readable formats. Digital media

can be created, viewed, distributed, modified and preserved on digital electronic devices. Some

examples of digital media includes software, digital images, digital videos, video games, web

pages, websites and also social media, data and databases, digital audio such as mp3 and

electronic books. The use of these digital medias is very convenient and easy to access and can

be learned without giving great effort especially for those who was brought up after the 1980’s

commonly known as “digital natives”. Digital natives are born during the age of digital

technology and therefore familiar with computers and the internet from the early age.

Self – Presentation

 refers to our wanting to present a desired images both to an internal audience(ourselves)

and external audience (others)

information from each other. We all want to connect with others that is why people are more

engaged in their gadgets like smartphone, tablets and computer desktops more or less 150 times

per day.

We excuse, justify or apologize as necessary to shore up our self-esteem and verify our self

image (Schlenker and Weigold, 1992)

Just as we preserve our self-esteem, we also must make sure not to brag too much and risk

the disapproval of others. (Anderson et al., 2006)

Social media is not only about bragging what you have. We should be responsible enough

on what to post online. Sometimes people are just lying about themselves to feel accepted or

belong to others. And there are also people who are judgmental and so negative that can affect

others too.

Setting boundaries on Online Self: SMART SHARING we must think first;

 Is this necessary?

 What are the benefits to this post? (Is it funny, warm hearted, informative or am I just

making noises online without a purpose)

 Have we resolve this issue?(Family, friends, co-workers)

 Is it appropriate? (Family values)

negative impression on people they just met than those who were not under Self-Presentational

demands. (Human et al., 2012)

See? This happens in reality of social media. The primary purpose of social media or

digital technologies are for the communication and information purposes. But people are using it

wrong and for crimes

In digital world, self presentation is the degree to which people make themselves

vulnerable through social performance Identity.

This is often revolves around repressing personal information or supplanting it with

modified or fabricated details more congruent with a desired self. (Berg and Derlega 1987, Kelly

and McKillop 1996)

This starts the scams and hackers. They are the people who hacks accounts for their own

interests. As a responsible person, we know our limitations.

Guidelines for proper sharing of Information and ethical use of this internet according to New

(2014):

 stick to safer sites

 guard your password

 limit what you share

 do not embarrass other people online

 always tell/report if you see strange or bad people online

 be patient

Self- Disclosure vs. Public Self

Self-Disclosure is the process of revealing information about yourself to others that is not really

known by them or basically the process of revealing information about oneself. Self disclosure

plays your private self.

There are four (4) types of Self – Disclosure:

First, deliberate self disclosures refer to the intentional disclosure of personal information

by the social worker about themselves. This exchange can be verbal sharing of personal

information or a deliberate action, such as placing a family photo in your office.

Second, unavoidable disclosures are basically non-deliberate, harmless and encompass a

wide range of possible information that a social worker reveals about themselves. For example,

gender, age, a distinctive physical characteristic such as a visible tattoo or pregnancy, style of

dress, jewelry such as a wedding ring and hair style are all sources of unavoidable self-

disclosures.

Third, accidental self-disclosure occurs when there are spontaneous reactions or unplanned

encounters outside of the office or the agency that may lead to self-disclosure of personal

information.
 Fourth, inappropriate self-disclosure is the sharing of information to solely benefit the

practitioner. The information shared is unnecessary and can burden.

Public self is the perspective of other people view an individual as portrayed in public

information, interaction with others and public action. Public self generally depends on the

public for definition, but is also an individual's view of how he or she fits in and actions taken

while in public. Mostly, public self and private self is revealed in speaking and actions. Physical

posture is also necessary in creating confidence in a presenter. Sometimes, the avoidance may

lead to missing a great chance to make an impression which is good and/ or long-lasting,

opportunity to sell their product or themselves.

Public speaking is generally feared almost by everybody Mostly; the reason why people

fear to express their selves in public is due to self-consciousness. Self-consciousness refers to an

acute sense of self awareness. It is opposed to the philosophical definition of self-awareness

since it is a pre-occupation with one’ self, the awareness that an individual being exists. An

individual may have an unpleasant feeling of self-consciousness when he/she comes to know that

other people are watching or observing him/her. The unpleasant feeling of self-consciousness is

occasionally paired with paranoia or shyness. When an individual is self-conscious, he/she

becomes aware of his/her own actions no matter how small they are.

Immerging Self-Identity in Digital World

Nothing is more fundamental to human beings as identity. Our identity is literally

who we are. Individuals tend to represent their identity to the society whether cultural, family,

national, team, gender or other identities.

characterized by the tension between how a person defines herself as an individual and how she

connects to others and social groups in affiliated relationships (Kleine, Kleine and Allen 1995).

According to World Economic Forum (WEF), our identity is important because it exists in

relation to others. It exists in relation to the economic and social structures in which we live.

How we represented in economic, political and other societal systems and our degree of choice

and control as to how we are represented in these systems sets the parameter for the opportunities

and rights available to us in our daily lives. Thus self-identity is a part of every individual

discovered by maturing emotionally and requires having the ability to understand their selves.

Nowadays, our identities are often recognized digitally. From the moment we wake up, as

we open our phones it requires password and scans our fingerprints to identify us. As we dive

into our social accounts it requires authentication to be accessed. Even when we are availing

products and services our digital identity is needed.

Individual identity is the self as distinguished from others and is unique. The identity in

digital environment can be multiple. The multiple identity and account one maintains can be in a

form of digital appropriation and manipulation of text, images, icons and hyperlinks to other

Web sites (Nguyen and Alexander 1996).

The average internet user in 2018 has 92 online accounts and is likely to be 200 by 2020

according to the study of WEF. In the digital world, one can have multiple identities to use in

different platforms.
 These digital selves may but need not, relate to one another or correspond to identities in

real life. The question lies, which identity is true or fake? Arnould and Price (2000 p.40) call

“authenticating acts” or self referential behaviors feel reveal or produce the “true” self.

Affiliated identity is important for situating the self within the social world and for

communicating identity to the intended audience. Where individual identity may be said to

demonstrate “me”, affiliative identity establishes “we”. Arnould and Price describe the

me/autonomous and we/ affiliative phenomena as two primary drivers of consumer behavior.

Impression Management

Impression Management refers to the conscious or subconscious process in which people

attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event. They do so

by regulating and controlling information in social interaction.

It was first conceptualized by Erving Goffman in 1969, and then was expanded upon

in1967. The foundation and the defining principles of impression management were created by

Erving Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Impression Management theory

states that on tries to alter one's perception according to the one's goals. In other words, the

theory is about how individuals wish to present themselves, but in a way that satisfies their needs

and goals. Goffman "proposed to focus on how people in daily work situations present

themselves and in so doing what they are doing to others" and he was "particularly interested on

how a person guides and control how others form an impression of them and what a person may

or may not do while performing before them". When consumers practice impression

management. (Goffman, 1959)

approval to the content or presentation of the site. Those who owns the website is pressure to

keep the best representation of their self to get more visitors or followers. Variety of audiences is

hard to please. Those markets have varied taste and interest that could not fit one personal

website. Also since the personal sites are all public utilities, anyone from anywhere may be

watching and listening and feeling the content of a personal website.

Managing Digital Self

MANAGING DIGITAL SELF everyone of us has a digital self a mask that we put on to

engage us to the technological worlds it often called as our "extended self" where an individual

shares things about his or herself through the use of social media. Technology is like a double

edged sword that can give an opportunity like expression and constructing oneself in a digital

self. The common sites that we use are facebook, instagram, twitter and youtube to express

ourselves to others. Understanding this flat form can provide us a better way of self presentation

but can also a cause of our depression. The pictures, videos and online messages, text, emails and

social medias statuses are some of the factors that define our digital self but these were trying out

different characters or identity that is different from we really are because we want to meet the

expectation of others. The example of this is when we're posting our pictures we usually edit it to

make us look better. If we receive a lot of likes, heart or reactions to our post it help us to boost

our self-esteem and we fill more confident knowing that we receive positive feedback from the

pictures that we post. We were trying to fit to what social media says on trend we try to fit in on

what others did or created to feel that you are fit in this generation just like the musically and
being a logger become famous a lot of people created their account and created videos and

upload it online since we are hiding to our social media account we are free to express ourselves

in any way we want. Just like when we are eating instead to eat it after serving we usually take a

picture of this before we eat, it takes a lot of shots before we satisfy to post in facebook or

instagram just like our new accessories or what we are doing, where are we at we're taking

pictures of this as an evidence that we can talk to our friends and post it online to satisfy our

inner self.

There’s a lot of difference of our generation today than to the past generation. First, people

can go out without phone but now we cannot be at ease whenever to fill that we didn’t bring our

cell phones in our pockets we always make sure that it is with us all the time. Second, children

are playing outside their houses play run games card and board games but for now children

nowadays don't want to touch the sand in the playground they also don't want to feel the sweats

in their body and they just play in their smartphones where we can say it easy to play in our

phones but they can't experience how to make a friends outside and make a memories that they

can share when they meet their old friends. Third, there are no sites like facebook, instagram,

twitter and YouTube that can be a reason why people become lazy now, people have a lot of

time scrolling, browsing and sharing some memes online than studying and doing household

chores. Lastly, before people need to go to the library to read a book to make an assignments but

now we can just click and download it and we already have an answer and people before are

satisfy having a keypad phone but now people are dying just to have a new smartphones.

"We know that engagement with social media and our cellphones releases a chemical

called dopamine. Dopamine is the exact chemical that we feel whenever we smoke, when drink,

when we gamble. In other words, it highly addictive. Where people tend to realize their stress
online to feel the short term relief but we know, the science is clear we know that people spend

more time using facebook suffer higher rates of depression than people less time using facebook,

that's a problem. That's addiction" Simon Sinek People using facebook or instagram and etc. has

a good filter to show yourself, how smart are you or how strong are you but these people can

commit suicide through social media and the reason of this is also because of social media, If

you don't look to their instagram posts you will not have a clue that they are depress just like

what I’ve said many of us who used social media like facebook, instagram and twitter and it

become their online diary. Social media and suicide is a relatively new phenomenon, which

influences suicide-related behavior. Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide. According to

the World Health Organization, in the year 2019, approximately 1.53 million people will die

from suicide .People post pictures and videos that show how much happy they are but in reality

they are dying in sadness.

Mature and responsible social media usage start with some basic steps. First, to know the

motives why you want multiple accounts. Search out platform that are social in nature and create

an account for the reason of connecting with others. Second, think how much information is

needed to disclose or share in the platform. Remember that what we share online stay there and it

cannot be easily deleted. Third, is balance. This simply mean to simply spend enough time both

online and offline. If the activity requires face to face contact make an effort to meet like in

coffee shops that spent it online. Choosing the right activity in the right time will give a balance

opportunity for social interaction and personal growth. It can be concluded that the digital world

has provided us a greater opportunities to express our identity and ourselves but we should

always keep in our mind that by enjoying the digital world may we not lose our true self in the

midst of using our phones.