Personal identity is a construct that one creates for themselves while exploring the world. It follows a person in various settings, whether in an educational institution, workplace, or on the sidewalk in a big city.  It is important when networking with other people, especially with the interconnectedness of relationships across the world.  Social media in the last decade has changed how a person’s identity is constructed.  Social networking in the digital space discredits our ability to truly understand personal identity by encouraging echo chambers, blurring the lines between a person and a persona, and creating difficulty in assessing the world around us.

First, social media has a tendency to encourage echo chambers, especially in the advent of personalized feeds and searches that are tailored to a user’s history.  Personal identity is entirely subjective, according to poststructuralism.  And the possibility of echo chambers, or the flow of similar ideas that reinforce a particular viewpoint, can inflate a person’s view in spite of other viewpoints.  As an example, a Christian and an Atheist are considered themselves friends online, but thanks to social media websites like Facebook, each person is never able to gather a full understanding of another viewpoint without diligent research.  Social media websites, like Facebook and Twitter, highlight topics and news that relates to their own views without offering a controversial side unless the user explicitly navigates to the particular person.

Garrett utilizes a word to describe this phenomenon, “Termed selective exposure, these politically motivated decision-making processes are not limited to traditional sources of political information, but extend to other venues as well,” (Garrett).  Personal identity is likely to be distorted based on the over-exposure to one-sided arguments and beliefs, whether religious, scientific, or political.  The tendency of social media to encourage echo chambers creates a barrier to truly understand personal identity.

Second, the blurring of the lines between a person and a persona has changed the dynamic of maintaining relationships on social media websites. Peggy Orenstein states that, “among young people especially [I] found that the self was increasingly becoming externally manufactured rather than internally developed,” (Orenstein).  Her opinion sheds some light on the belief that social media does construct a person’s identity by refining to public opinion.

Social media websites, like Facebook and Twitter, promote the idea of self-promotion rather than self-awareness, which accelerates the declining trend of empathy (Orenstein).  For example, the memes that circulate social media websites often promote the worst of humanity or popular beliefs.  It perpetuates the idea that popular beliefs describe a person’s inner persona.  Since a person’s persona is quite different from their inner self, it confirms that social networking in the digital space discredits our ability to truly know ourselves.

Lastly, social media has created difficulty in assessing the world around us.  The consequence of utilizing social media as a way to communicate hinders our ability to distinguish between the real world and the digital domain. In an essay by Rosen, Boorstin stated that, “[he] criticized the creation of what he called ‘pseudo-events’ such as politicians’ staged photo-ops, and he traced the way in which our pursuit of illusion transforms our experience of travel, clouds our ability to discern the motivations of advertisers, and encourages us to elevate celebrities to the status of heroes.”

The dilemma of not being able to distinguish the real world and the digital domain creates yet another barrier to truly know ourselves and our personal identity.

In conclusion, social media encourages echo chambers by personalized news feeds and searches.  Echo chambers are created by social media websites conforming to a person’s web history and known beliefs, which leads to selective exposure.  Social media blurs the lines between a person and a persona by refining a person’s perceived identity to public opinion.  Finally, social media has created some difficulty in assessing the world around us with the creation of ‘pseudo-events’ that confuse our ability to distinguish between the real world and the digital domain.  All of these factors create barriers for people to truly understand their personal identity.

Works Cited

Garrett, R. Kelly. "Echo Chambers Online?: Politically Motivated Selective Exposure Among Internet News Users." Journal Of Computer-Mediated Communication 14.2 (2009): 265-285. Communication & Mass Media Complete. Web. 8 Dec. 2013.

Orenstein, Peggy. “I Tweet, Therefore I Am.” Exploring Language. Ed. Suzanne Phelps Chambers. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2012. 251-253 Print.

Rosen, Christine. “In the Beginning Was the Word.” Exploring Language. Ed. Suzanne Phelps Chambers. Upper Saddle River: Pearson, 2012. 203-208 Print.