Teen Identity and the Internet
It’s never been easy being a teenager, has it?
We all have our own bittersweet memories of those years ourselves, and high on the list of challenges was this nagging question of … Who am I?
Educators and psychologists call the troubled years “adolescence.” Singer Pat Boone once wrote a book simply calling them, “twixt twelve and twenty.” Teens and parents alike often just call them frustrating.
In the Social Media Age, that era this blog calls the Virtual Unknown, teens may have an even tougher time developing an individual identity that is reflective of who they actually are.
Life is a roller coaster during the teenage years, and sometimes the social media don't help adolsescents who are trying to figure out who they are.
Two worlds
After all, actuality and virtuality are not exactly the same thing, and the latest studies show the average teen spends 31 hours per week online, according to www.cybersentinel.co.uk
Adding in some additional time for cell phone texting, and you could say the average teen has a full-time job of living and interacting in a virtual world.
Cyber time
That’s about 50 percent of a kid’s waking week spent in a world where they and other teens can say pretty much anything they like on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc., without having to worry about any immediate non-verbal reaction from the person they are saying it about.
That releases all kinds of inhibitions and bypasses a lot of internal censors normally in place when an individual is interacting with others in a face-to-face setting.
Censors off
My own years in teaching online college classes have proven that to be true. Students released from their perceptions of how other facial expressions in the room are evaluating them, feel a lot freer to jump in and shoot from the lip.
Sadly, as all of us who ever wished to un-strike the “send” key know, talking before thinking is not always such a great thing.
Extreme results
The recent cases of teen suicide resulting from embarrassing, personal, social-media disclosures made about them shows the extreme tragic reaction that can occur when that happens. When the embarrassing parts of a teen’s identity – imagined or real – is cybercast without permission, humiliation is on the doorstep.
Teens, who are just in the midst of forming those identities, are the most vulnerable to these thoughtless disclosures which strike with the full force of barbarians at the gate. In my pre-Web adolescence, I remember that kind of embarrassment resulting from a public puncturing of my own identity.
I had waited for my 13th birthday to show that I was not a child any longer, and that I was now a teenager who – I reasoned – was almost an adult. My father, acting totally out of love, gave my name to the host of a local afternoon kid’s show (when TV stations still spent money on producing programs themselves) called, “Crusader Rabbit.”
A sad birthday boy
My name was read by the adorned man/rabbit as one of the “birthday boys” of that day. I saw it and was devastated. How could I face my “grown-up” seventh-grade classmates the next day at school? I was in junior high, for God’s sake; no longer a kid. Dad was simply seeing me as his little boy, as all parents do for quite some time with their kids, and failed to catch the nuance that was in neon lights for me.
When teens are neck-deep in the struggle to figure out who they are, and today someone who may not even know them decides to pop something onto Twitter without giving it a second thought, it doesn’t help. The kid can’t even console himself, as I did with my dad, that it was an innocent mistake made out of love and not a mean spirit.
Fake I.D.’s
Another problem with teen identity that has arisen with the social media is it’s easy to fake who you are to others who don’t know you well, or who may not know you at all. It doesn’t take long for a teen to figure out he/she can present an ideal self (that person who you think you’d like to be) to others in the virtual world. In fact, barring any face-to-face meetings or “corrections” posted by others who know you are lying, you can actually run with that presumed identity for some time.
This, of course, isn’t limited to kids. Adults on dating sites engage a lot in this promulgation of ideal selves as opposed to real selves. It would make an interesting study if some researcher decided to study just how much this process occurs. So the Web and its social media can become a kind of escape or netherworld where a teenager can be – for awhile and with some people – who they want to be.
The problem is we can’t go for long assuming that both the actual and virtual worlds – and the identities we have created in each – are real.
Cognitive dissonance
Social scientists and communication scholars study something they call “cognitive dissonance,” which basically says humans cannot live for long being in dissonance with themselves. We can’t go on convincing ourselves that two opposites are both true, or that someone we love and respect is right about a point, yet the point itself is wrong.
The only thing that helps us live in dissonance for a time is denial. And denial doesn’t do much to help us realize our true identity.
It’s a rough world
So anytime we parents think we had it rougher growing up than our kids do, we might think again. At least we didn’t have to grapple with a mean-spirited and/or thoughtless Twitter or Facebook post exploding our fragile attempts at protecting a very vulnerable identity in formation.
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Comments
I am probably in that percentage of people who spend 31 hours a week online. Either facebook is open and running on my computer or open on my phone. I think that it is very easy to become someone you are not and believe that people are not who they say they are, and more teens need to be aware of this.
i think this has some great points about how hard it is for teens nowadays to get to experience that moment of “finding themselves” I know that i grew up going through junior high and high school playing an online game where we would go by aliases and our little characters were the only images our “friends” saw of us. this makes it really hard to be yourself and really find your true identity. in the same way, blogs, where you dont have to answer to anyone, and can just post whatever comment you want and there are no repercussions because you can just post as anonymous. it gives people an out to be someone else. if they dont like who they are they can hide behind these doppelgangers under different names.
this has given me a lot to think of and it was well written. thank you.
This isn’t only limited to teens. Last week my nephew, who is a high school senior, and his girlfriend broke up. It was amazing how many people liked their “single” statuses. A well meaning uncle of the young lady posted that “this opens the door for someone better with more to offer you.” Of course the claws came out. My question to this poster was “Do you even know her ex to make a judgement like that? Is it possible they just realized it wasn’t meant to be?”
Being a teenager this article really was personal, I had to look into myself and see if this reality was real to my life. I must admit there is some truth to my life. It is so easy to make believe you are one way and make others believe it in the virtual world. This shows me that I need to take the media and virtual world seriously.
I do believe that people will always struggle with identity. It is simply a part of life. When we live in a society, where we can be anything we want, pretend or real, we will always have statistics and personal issues. I do believe that social networks help an individual to become who they are. It allows them to see what they are up against and decide it they really want to go there. Social Networks provide good challenges and can only be taken badly depending on the individual.
I think Identity as a teenager is hard, always has been and always will be, but with the advent of the new social medias it’s supposedly going to help…but does it? With the questions that facebook asks you to answer in their profiles (favorite books, movies etc.) it’s simply another way for the bullies and the mean spirited people in life to segregate the person from society. “Oh you like Twilight? Ew what’s wrong with you…” or “Books? books are for nerds” all of these are just more fodder for someone to have their identity taken. I can understand the notion that you want yourself to be out there, and that you want people to know who you are…I just hope that the realization is there that it isn’t always good.
Definitely some interesting points made in this post. I knew teens spend a lot of time online (I have a 15 year old sister) but I had no idea it was 31 hours, close to 50 percent.
Even though I recognize the improvements social media sites have made within society (distribution of news faster, networking, etc.), I still can’t help but feel like social media may not be the golden child a lot of people are suggesting it is. As a graduate student I’m working on researching the use of social media in political campaigns. What I’ve found so far not only suggests that teens (as well as other demographics) spend a lot of time online, tend to construct fake online identities, have a harder time interacting interpersonally without technology, but also suggests in many cases, social media is lowering the quality of education.
Not only are teens (and other social media users) not being held accountable for the majority of what they say or share, they’re also not paying attention to how they construct their opinions. Studies are showing that teens are now finding it acceptable to use online lingo/language in everyday life, sometimes even academically. This wouldn’t be a problem if the online lingo barely resembled actual sentences or words.
I really like the point of this article. Internet brings not only the easy way to get information but also floods of the problems for the society.I can still recall there was one issue of the ABC world news interviewed the high school students in Shanghai and students said when they feel unhappy what they should do, they almost reply;surf the Internet is the most way to be happy.Cognitive dissonance is now becoming more and more within the teens. Online they are Mr. Humor or Mr. Confidence, while in the real life they are Mr. Sad. Internet for them is a shelter. Lots of news were reported that teens are addicted to the Internet and have a lot of side effects. After I reading this passage I realize this kind of problems not only happen in China but also everywhere. This kind of problem also not only happened within the teens but also the people who often stay online. Even myself sometimes feel time fly and sometimes I ask my self who am I? This horrible. At this point, some of the Chinese government policy I think is good for teens such like teens cannot see any adult things on website, when they play any Internet game over 2 hours the Internet will force you to leave the game. As far as I am concerned, freedom on Internet is necessary but too much freedom will bring so many problems then it should be controlled. At least the question “who you are?” should be correctly answered by all the teens first.
One part that stood out to me was the comment on the amount of hours that students and teens spend on the computer. In the past and generally even today, if statistics are given about the amount of time a group of people spends watching tv, on the computer, or playing video games, it has generally had a negative connotation to it. I am curious, has the statistics on the number of hours on the computer changed to a simple statistic and not a negatively connotated meaning? Because in their defense, that is where much of students school work is found and done. I think to much an extent, they have no control over the amount of hours that they spend on the computer.
This was a great post. I am fascinated by the impact FaceBook and social media sites are having on its users, especially young people. When you have an online profile, it is so easy to show to others exactly who you want them to see. You can choose to put up or “tag” only the best pictures of yourself, even though in real life, we all have our bad hair days. You can sit with your cursor blinking in the comment box, making sure your post is the wittiest thing you can think of, which you never would have been able to come up with in the moment in real life. And you choose exactly what details to put in your “information” section, picking only the ones you view as positive. This replaces getting to know people in real life, with all their flaws and faults—the information they would never post on their FaceBook profile.
Class: Mass Media and Cultures (R51-S11C)
Student: Sabrina Harrison
I definitely agree, social media has changed the way of the world. Having to grow up in a \virtual world\ definitely increases your dependency on the internet and etc. With the children that are growing up today, This is all they know. And as they grow things in this virtual world continue to progress and help shape their lives. Children today don’t know anything about before, because once again, this is all they know.
The presence of and ready access to the internet and social media has certainly impacted our teenagers in so many ways and in areas that we have probably yet to discover. The post discusses some extreme examples of the depth that social media can negatively impact our youth and has taken bullying to the cyber-level and viral in mere moments. The rapid fire reposting and tweeting can have devastating consequences on our children who may not have the maturity to look past an embarrassing moment and see that this too shall pass.
Are our children, who have developed so many virtual friendships, really learning how to develop true interpersonal skills by spending so much time online? Will their personal relationships suffer from the mere volume of time they spend online? Do they value (or at least see as more urgent) electronic modes of communicating over more human contact?
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I think its good to be aware of the affect media has on teenagers and young adults as we grow up and develop. With media at our fingertips, we can project whatever image we want to convey to others, some people are authentic and others are pretending to be someone they wish they could really be. I don’t like how the media does this and how technology gives the recourses for people to be fake, but at the end of the day it really is our choice who we want to be and become. Well written article and research, I really enjoyed reading this especially because it’s such a heavy topic that needs to be talked about more often.
It is true that many teens spend way too much time interacting in a virtual world rather than in reality. I too am guilty of doing this. I’m constantly texting or checking my Facebook. With that comes saying things I may not normally say in person because there is no fear of that face-to-face interaction when something is said online instead. I like the example that was used about online classes. I have taken more than one online class, and I’ve always felt much more comfortable voicing my opinions in that kind of setting rather than in person. There is much less of a feeling of public humiliation, rejection and disagreement from others. However, the online community is not always a safe place. Cyber bullying is a big problem with drastic results. A boy who went to my high school as constantly ridiculed on Facebook for being gay. He eventually decided to commit suicide because he felt as though no one would accept him. It is a sad truth that technology has been able to lead us to tragedy such as that. With all of these different outlets of communication available, it is difficult for the youth of today to figure out who they really are because they portray different parts of themselves in different situations.
Response to “Teen Identity and the Internet.”
URL: http://blog.newsok.com/virtualunknown/2011/01/18/teen-identity-and-the-internet/
Class: Intro to Mass Comm (online)
Student: Mariya Wilson #11200
The overall blog on teenage years was well written. I especially found “cognitive dissonance” and its linkage to teenage years, quite intriguing—this topic (cognitive dissonance in America) would essentially make for another integrative blog post. In your blog, you stated how people can only live so long convincing themselves that something is true, when it really is not. And then you injected a very powerful statement that made me wonder: “The only thing that helps us live in dissonance for a time is denial. And denial doesn’t do much to help us realize our true identity.” How much of American society is plagued with “cognitive dissonance” and can this disease be culturally contagious? Beside God, where does our true identity come from?