Discussion 1
Part 1
Technological advancements and digitalization in the contemporary world have made the integration of the use of social media into people’s everyday lives successful. Hefner (2016) defines social networking sites (SNS) as online platforms that help people in creating profiles that are semi-public or public. The profiles can be used in deriving lists of other users with whom they share common characteristics, connections or relations. Some sites enable and encourage interaction between strangers and acquaintances depending on their users’ common influences and interests while others encourage the strengthening of strong networks. Other sites cater for a diverse and wide audience while others have restrictions on individuals that belong to certain racial, religious or cultural backgrounds. SNS have cemented their place by drawing the attention of most teenagers and young adults due their entertainment, reach, and affordability. Popular SNS among the youth and young adults are Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and Myspace (Lau, 2017). It is vital to understand the defining features and the core aspects of online social media and the SNS that have made significant impacts in promoting intercultural understanding.
Social media has been a useful tool in making people stay up-to-date with information about people’s lives and connect with others. It has led to many positive impacts especially in influencing people’s perceptions of others. It led to an increase in the number of day-to-day interactions among people on the social platforms (Lau, 2017). Social media influences people’s perceptions of themselves and others by putting an interesting lens on self-creation. The ideal self is the self that people aspire to be. Regardless of how people realize it, they are spending a great deal of time and effort on social media trying to create their own social identity. The creation of alternative self majorly depends on how others are projecting themselves on social media.
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Not long ago my best friend Lily deleted her Facebook account. I failed to understand why a person would do that, so I decided to ask her. I was surprised by her response. Lily deleted her Facebook account since she felt depressed about her self-image. Being a 32-year-old freelancer who just started her home-based affiliate marketing business, she felt pressured to keep up with her friends and former colleagues who were seemingly doing better in life. She felt that taking the right pictures, putting on the right outfits, with the right filter, with the right people, and at the right place was too much pressure. Social media influences how people project their best and unrealistic self and in most cases, people want others to perceive them as successful.
Part 2
The avatar I created was intended to demonstrate my feminine and racial physical attributes. I have great pride in my facial characteristics and hair, which I consider important elements of my sexual identity. Thus, I wanted to convey that I am a beautiful Hispanic woman in her early thirties. My dressing style and sense of fashion are other important aspects of my personal identity. I regard my dressing style as trendy and casual. Although the avatar does not clearly capture the dressing, I tried to ensure that its representation was near as accurate as possible. I deliberately changed my facial features by putting on spectacles. I sometimes wear spectacles, especially during the summer or at parties. However, the spectacles on the avatar seem to create a completely different person, a transformation that I like.
Self-esteem and the desire to create ideal representation of self are some major factor that underlies the challenge of creating avatars as self-representations. Despite the advantages of editing and viewing an individual’s profile in enhancing self-esteem, people are often exposed to other people’s glorified and selective social self-representations, which often decrease their self-esteem (Lau, 2017). For instance, people who frequently use avatars believe that other people are more successful and happier than themselves because of the pictures or videos they post on the sites. Thus, they are forced to create avatars that mimic the lives of those who are already successful. James et al. (2017) allude that the extent of downward comparisons of people on Facebook is lower than their degree of upward online comparisons, which tends to diminish their self-esteem. Additionally, people occasionally have low self-esteem after receiving negative comments on their social media platforms as a result of their avatars.
I believe I have created an avatar that is an accurate representation of my cultural and personal identity. Being a Hispanic, it is important for me to create an avatar with the right complexion and facial features that are reflective of my cultural identity. These representations are important to me. I created my avatar based on my achievements along with appearances, which serve as the most significant contribution to my identity. Despite the advantages of using avatar for online representation of personal identity, there are ethical concerns associated with this use. According to Dixon & Keyes (2013), there are many ethical issues of using avatars such as spamming, illegal file sharing, identity deception, and multiple identities. The ethical implications based on my conclusion are racial stereotyping. This has been propagated by the desire to develop an avatar that resonates with the Hispanic physical and cultural identity. However, most platforms and tools for creating avatars do not provide the prerequisite features for the representation of minority groups.
References
Dixon, J., & Keyes, D. (2013). The permanent disruption of social media. Stanford Social Innovation Review. Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society . Retrieved from http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/the_permanent_disruption_of_social_media
Heffner, T. (2016). The effects of social media use in undergraduate students.
James, C., Davis, K., Charmaraman, L., Konrath, S., Slovak, P., Weinstein, E., & Yarosh, L. (2017). Digital life and youth well-being, social connectedness, empathy, and narcissism. Pediatrics , 140 (Supplement 2), S71-S75.
Lau, W. W. (2017). Effects of social media usage and social media multitasking on the academic performance of university students. Computers in human behavior , 68 , 286-291.
Student Responses
Response 1- Gabby Altman
Of all the assumptions made by researchers, I think one of the most common is the idea how online representations perpetuate stereotypes. Gabby’s essay has both strengths and weaknesses which are evident throughout the paper and different methods can be used to address the issues. I concur with Gabby that many users in the contemporary world are not able to represent themselves accurately on the internet which presents a division between the digital and real life. Research shows that we live in a largely global society and maintaining an online presence is becoming one of the most aspects with most people representing their ideal self on social media rather than their real self (Murray, 2015). From this argument Gabby is correct when she argues that people do not represent themselves accurately on social media.
Reading Gabby’s personal experience on creation of avatars that represents individual group members got me to think more about the representation of personal identity through Bitmoji app. Her case made me wonder whether there were circumstances that made her decide to use an avatar to represent her personal identity on social media. Most importantly Gabby provides evidences on the lack of cultural sensitivity and intellectual understanding on the creation of Bitmojis that fully represent an individual. Furthermore, most people create avatars which are more of idealized and inspirational versions of themselves.
I think that Gabby’s arguments are the most important since they help explain the interpretations of personal identities presentenced by many online users. Another strength of Gabby’s arguments is that she was able to explain the ethical implications based on her previous arguments as well as her own avatar creation. However, from her personal experience, Gabby’s arguments conflict with her support on creation of avatars. From the beginning of her essay Gabby has been critical on creation of avatars and this should have remained consistent event from her own creation.
Response 2- Therisa Edwards
The beginning of Therisa’s essays presents a vivid description of technological changes in the past and present and how it has impacted of communication across cultures. This one of the major strengths of Therisa’s essay since it provides arguments based on well researched evidence. Furthermore, the ideas presented are in line with the main topic of discussion. I agree with Therisa’s argument that various social media platforms perpetuate stereotypes as opposed to fostering intercultural understanding. A current study indicates that most people represent their ideal selves on social media and eliminate many of their real components due to statuses, achievements and competitions in the society (Dobson, 2016). From this viewpoint, Therisa’s arguments clearly present the idea stereotypical representations of people’s identities on social media.
The personal experience presented reveals the genuine side of the writer and how she tries as much as possible to portray her real self. Despite the deeper possibilities of ideal and real representation of people’s identity on social media that Therisa is trying to convey, the arguments focus more on the negatives. It is built more on the assumptions made about stereotypical perpetuation. Therisa should have presented both sides of the arguments to enable the readers understand the arguments presented. I think Therisa’s avatar is well represented since she perfectly defines both her real cultural and personal identities through the avatar. However, she still has doubts on misconception that the avatar might try to convey. This shows lack on a stand point in her arguments. Overall, Therisa’s essay was clear with well defined and evidenced arguments that make it more interesting to read. She is able to convey her ideas on both social media representation and avatar creation accurately.
References
Dobson, A. S. (2016). Postfeminist digital cultures: Femininity, social media, and self-representation . Springer.
Murray, D. C. (2015). Notes to self: the visual culture of selfies in the age of social media. Consumption Markets & Culture , 18 (6), 490-516.
