The argument I will present in this paper centres on the transformation of a person’s identity from the unmediated offline world to the mediated online virtuality of the internet to show how the internet influences our definition of who we are. I argue that the internet influences our definition of who we are by providing a virtual world where identity deception through self-reflexive ‘hoped-for’ identities are constructed to generate desired impressions motivated by individual payoff’s, social capital and maximal distinctiveness. I have focussed my research on social networking sites (SNSs), in particular, Facebook.
