This document summarizes interviews conducted with college students about their social media use and digital identity development. Some key points:
- Students see their online identities as adapting to different social media platforms, wearing "different masks" or highlighting different "pieces" of themselves on each site.
- Many feel pressure to curate perfect images and highlight only positive moments due to social comparison. This leads some to feel constant failure or dissatisfaction.
- Students note the exhaustion of feeling they must constantly perform and keep up appearances online. Some see their peers' highlight reels as masking real struggles.
- As they mature, students strive for self-authored identities online, making conscious choices about social media rather than just
24. Digital Identity
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Or more accurately, digital identities,
are the personas, data, and actions
we take online as well as the
reputation of those identities and
how they are viewed by others.
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47. clicktivism
go beyond How do we
define
“meaningful”
participation?
Adam Gismondi, Ph.D.
@AdamGismondi / @TuftsIDHE
Institute for Democracy & Higher Education
48. social media and civic engagement…
Allows fast,
customized
information
gathering
Facilitates
information
sharing
Drives civic
learning and
organization
Adam Gismondi, Ph.D.
@AdamGismondi / @TuftsIDHE
Institute for Democracy & Higher Education
49. but it also… Lead to an
avoidance of civil
debate
Adam Gismondi, Ph.D.
@AdamGismondi / @TuftsIDHE
Institute for Democracy & Higher Education
Create an
intimidating
environment for
early-stage
development
52. Digitized Development
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is the underlying developmental
processes that inform how we
understand ourselves and our
behavior in digital spaces.
Digitized development can carry
unique properties from offline
development.
@paulgordonbrown
56. Student explores and experiments
openly with social media. This is
strongly influenced by authorities
(parents/guardians) through access
and peers through peer culture.
Student does not understand how
online and offline interactions can
impact each other or possess a
sophisticated understanding of
context.
Student makes conscious choices about
social media usage and how it fits into life
desires, outlook, and goals.
Student realizes that one’s online life
requires constant renegotiation as one’s
goals, needs, contexts, and
circumstances change.
@paulgordonbrown