Social Media has become a huge part of everyday lives. With 1.23 billion Facebook users in 2013 (Kiss 2014) and more than ‘145 million users sending on average 90 million tweets per day’ through Twitter (Kietzmann et al. 2011), everyone is connected in this digital age and knows what everyone else is doing. Social Networking Sites (SNS) enable communication among wide circles of contacts across the globe. For the younger generation disclosing personal information across a variety of domains is part of everyday life, making them less cautious and feel more comfortable with ‘online disclosure’ (Nosko et al. 2010). Gomez (2008) describes a new generation of ‘Digital-Natives’. Children who have grown up with the internet are accustomed to the world
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Livingstone (2008) conducted interviews with people who use Social Media, most people joined the sites because ‘everyone was talking about it’. This is a form of peer pressure, not wanting to be left out and ostracised if you do not join. Younger teenagers social media pages are constructed by the norms and practices of their peer groups because they want to fit in. The effects of this is it creates a ‘social actor’ (Page 2012). People alter their behavior and costume to manage the impressions given to a number of different audiences through everyday interaction. This is also featured in the work of Goffman (1959) who explains there is a process of ‘dramatic interaction’ where people create multiple selves for multiple performances, users are changing their behavior for different audiences to be accepted, this already shows Social Media is effecting …show more content…
It also highlights a decline in the size of their social circle as the individual is focusing more on their online relationships leading to isolation and loneliness in the real world, making it easier to turn to Social Media support. The social features embedded in Social Media capture users attention and make them use it to an excessive extent. This is a more extreme view, however it does put relevant points across such as people relying on their SNS for socialising and their online world becomes more real and important than their real life as it may be giving them more satisfaction and higher self-esteem. Individuals are using their online identity as a ‘mask’ to separate them from their real life. (Page
Livingstone (2008) conducted interviews with people who use Social Media, most people joined the sites because ‘everyone was talking about it’. This is a form of peer pressure, not wanting to be left out and ostracised if you do not join. Younger teenagers social media pages are constructed by the norms and practices of their peer groups because they want to fit in. The effects of this is it creates a ‘social actor’ (Page 2012). People alter their behavior and costume to manage the impressions given to a number of different audiences through everyday interaction. This is also featured in the work of Goffman (1959) who explains there is a process of ‘dramatic interaction’ where people create multiple selves for multiple performances, users are changing their behavior for different audiences to be accepted, this already shows Social Media is effecting …show more content…
It also highlights a decline in the size of their social circle as the individual is focusing more on their online relationships leading to isolation and loneliness in the real world, making it easier to turn to Social Media support. The social features embedded in Social Media capture users attention and make them use it to an excessive extent. This is a more extreme view, however it does put relevant points across such as people relying on their SNS for socialising and their online world becomes more real and important than their real life as it may be giving them more satisfaction and higher self-esteem. Individuals are using their online identity as a ‘mask’ to separate them from their real life. (Page