Creating Identity in a Digital Age: The Facebook Addiction

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Creating Identity in a Digital Age The Facebook
Addiction

• Elizabeth Koenig

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What is Facebook?

• www.facebook.com
• Social Utility

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You're Studying That?

• I love Facebook
• Others love Facebook, too

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Usage Statistics

• 70 million active users (Facebook 2007).
• average of 200,000 new users every day (Facebook
  2007).
• sixth most trafficked website in the world
  (Facebook 2007).

• 6.8 of global Internet users visit Facebook
  (Alexa 2008)
• average usage time of 20 minutes (Facebook 2007).

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Questions

• What is the attraction to Facebook?
• How do Facebook users construct their online
  identities?

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Methods

• Snowball Sampling
• Profile page analysis
• Interviews

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Limitations

• Privacy Restrictions
• Personal Bias

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Analysis

• Forms of Capital (Bourdieu)
• Looking-Glass Self (Cooley)

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Forms of Capital (Bourdieu)

• Cultural Capital
• cultural connections that represent you
• why do you like what you like?

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Social Capital

• The connections you have with others
• Benefits (on a large scale)
• Better health
• Lower crime rates
• Community commitment

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Forms of Capital and Profiles

• Use Cultural Capital to fill out profile
• Profile is used to gain Social Capital

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Example

• I think in a way I kind of create the person
  that I would want to present my self through,
  like knowing, for instance, if someone was to
  look at it my profile I would want them to see
  me the way I wanted everyone to see me. Like, I
  put myself on there as the best way that I can.
  And I put things on there that I want people to
  know about me. Opposed to like, things that are
  true but I dont care if anyone knows. Like for
  my interests, I have lots of interests, but I
  keep them as ones that I want people to know Im
  interested in.

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Social Capital and Weak Ties

• Communication Tool
• Weak Ties
• Social connection that requires little effort
• Good /Bad Computer Veil

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Positive Example

• its kind of like being at a party, without the
  awkward part, like, you can talk to anyone you
  want to talk to and if you feel uncomfortable
  talking to them you can poke them, and so, its a
  really good way to feel like youre part of a
  community without actually having any awkward
  parts of being part of a community.

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Negative Example

• I feel that a lot has been lost with the way we
  communicate now, like through email,
  electronically, because I feel like a lot of the
  things that people say they wouldnt have the
  audacity to say if they were talking on the phone
  or face to face, so I feel like communication has
  been degraded in a way through depending on the
  computer so much, making it less genuine...

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Looking-Glass Self (Cooley)

• Self Assessment in Three Parts

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Through the Facebook Looking-Glass

• Read another users profile
• Read their own profile judging it through the
  eyes of the other
• Judging themselves/their profile in reaction

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Example

• sometimes Ill go and look at groups of people
  Im with, and think like, what people from home
  think about me and my friends here, and what
  people here may think about me and my friends at
  home.

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CONCLUSION!
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How do users construct their online identities?

• Users display their Cultural Capital on profile
  pages to create their online identities.

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Why do so many people like Facebook so much?

• Users gain Social Capital
• Users can use the looking-glass self to evaluate
  their identities

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Photo Credits

• http//bp2.blogger.com/_2ph2upGQFUg/Rp8jW2feSEI/AA
  AAAAAAACg/77pmfUKBY0A/s1600-h/29_3_facebook.jpg
• http//www.collegeotr.com/images/blogs/d6f4650b38a
  21721af80d15b4c8ef44b.jpg
• http//www.kerching.tv/facebook.gif
• http//www.profilepounder.com/pics/comments/online
  _friends/onlineFriends245B15D.gif
• http//www.studentsshopper.com/images/halloween/fa
  cebook.jpg
• www.cartoonstock.com/directory/f/facebook.asp
• http//www.nmubaseball.net/uscho/ch-halloween.jpg
• http//images.theglobeandmail.com/archives/RTGAM/i
  mages/20070612/wlfacebook12/facebook_500big.jpg

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The End

• Hey Thanks!
• Dr. Ben Feinberg
• Dr. Laura Vance
• All who contributed to my data
• Jes Wooten
• My friends