This paper analyses the evolution of social media and the shift on our understanding of identity and community. The complex flexibility of social media lets its users to put out their personality however they want it to be for others in the online world to see. With the rise of social media anything is accessible with just clicking a button. However, the fast-paced digital world is not for everyone and consequently, having an online identity can affect the real-life world we are living in. Furthermore, online communities are created when users share a common interest and connection through the virtual world, but we still have to be mindful on things and content that we put out on the digital platforms.

Communication and networking became effortless in this day and age. With the rise of social media, any interaction within the cyber world is possible and achievable with just a click of a button. Formerly, social media was only used to publish information for the worldwide audience, whereas now social media is certainly more complex, and not just about posting contents on various platforms available. It has become a cyber location where people around the world can get together and network with others even if it is miles away. Social media platforms have become a place to accommodate a person’s appearance and personality simultaneously, with it developing into a somewhat essential part of a person’s daily life. Furthermore, communities are also expanding into the digital world, it comes to a point where people do not have to meet in person anymore to discuss about their interests. Therefore, this paper will further analyze the evolution of social media and how our understanding and portrayal of identity and community have shifted which then will lead to the positive and negative affordances that social media gives to the people.

The first topic that we are going to discuss is the change in the depiction of a person’s identity from our real life to our virtual life. To begin with, what even is identity? The meaning and purpose identity differs for everyone. In general, identity is the entirety of someone’s physical appearance and characteristics, like their hobbies, favorite food, and what things that makes them happy, and an online identity is similar where the difference only lies on the space it is shown on, the digital world, but your online identity differs to the real-life identity because the variety of roles social media allows you to show on its various platforms. The variety of online communication platforms available and the different ways to utilize it allow users to create a certain persona in each platform, thus concluded that a person have one true identity, the side of them that is unchangeable, not in their control, and they have multiple partial identities that they can control on when and where to express them (Internet Society, 2017). Even communication is made easier for people without any limit on the time nor distance of each person, people can communicate with each other wherever and whenever. Papacharissi (2010), asserts that those communication platforms enable interactions between different online users around the world and said communication process does not need the users to reveal their real-life identity (p. 26). On that account, alternating your identity in various online platforms to better adapt to the algorithm is easily applicable because it is something that we can control, we can choose how people will perceive us in the online world in different online settings.

Digital media have given multiple contexts where someone can convey and explore their digital identity (Davis, 2013), permits things that were impossible back before social media is not that crucial in a person’s life. The flexibility of social media lets people to present themselves however they want other online users to see. Furthermore, today, online identity is more often shown rather than the real-life one, because nowadays everything we do, we do it digitally through social media and its existing platforms. It is intriguing that these days people can easily change and form their identity digitally in an instant and sometimes that change is based on something trivial. For instance, the difference in how people are using Instagram as a photo-based account and TikTok as a video-based account enables them to put out a certain persona on one platform and another on the other, they could show their aesthetic peaceful partial identity on Instagram and their cheerful and joyous side on TikTok. Easy access for people around the world, fast to get caught up on what’s trending and happening around.

On the other hand, portraying a certain identity on an online platform can cause drawbacks which consequently can even affect the real-life world we are living in. First, the fast-moving digital world drives us to follow and participate within that pace. The coming ins and outs of trends and viral challenges, acts, or even popular newly released movies or series that is booming on social media platforms makes users feel a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out), in a sense if they didn’t participate in the trend they are not considered as part of the online conversation. The fast-paced online environment is helpful to a certain point, farther than that, the vast majority of online active users can cause easier spread of misinformation across the cyberspace. Moreover, social media brings up unrealistic expectations that became one of the societal standards these days, specifically on beauty standards for women. An ideal body type in society is created through social media, from models and celebrities posting about the perfect body and routine, even though in reality all body types are not the same and one cannot be a benchmark on how all types should look like, everyone is different and unique in their own way, their own appearance. Not only about body types, but the media is also showing unrealistic expectations of relationships, romantic and friends, most social media post are not one hundred percent accurate (Stegner, 2023). The romantic loving posts we see on Instagram or the cute videos of best friends having the time of their lives on TikTok unconsciously creates a biased way of thinking for the viewers that their lives are perfect like they show it to be on social media, although in reality, in every relationship not everything is as lovey-dovey as they seem to be but the media makes us think like that because they rarely show the other side of the relationship, thus makes us expects that everything is as perfect as it seems.

Another topic that we will cover is the online community, which basically is “the vast majority of connections were strong ties between people who were in regular, often daily, contact with each other and had much in common,” (Hampton & Wellman, 2018, p. 644). Similar to online identity, the difference is just online identity is based on one person, and individual user, whereas the online community is where multiple users are connected together in one online space. The shift from traditional face-to-face community to an online community creates a convergence in between and transforms the way people communicate with each other and have also reshaped their attitudes. Papacharissi (2010) asserts the term networked publics, a construct of a public space where a group of users with a collective interest and get together in an online space and has been affected by cultural and social changes (p. 40).

The concept of community changed throughout the years due to the shift from traditional to online. For instance, the change in the social aspect is like a common encounter in a real world will require more effort for communication rather than in the online world, where communication is simply created by pushing multiple buttons in an electronic device. For the cultural aspect, several traditions are fading just because of everything becoming digital, it loses the sense of belonging of a tradition in a community. Furthermore, this relates back to the first topic because creating connections with other people also reflects on how we perceived our online identity to be, because our online identity allows us to communicate with whomever has similar interests like ours. The online community created through social media provides persistence for the users, Hampton (2015) stated that when a connection is created between one user and another or multiple users that shares a common interest, an online public space is created through various channels of communication (p. 110). In traditional media, persistence is created through constant communication between individuals or is called as a “person-to-person contact,” whereas in digital media, persistence can be achieved by “person-to-network contact,” similar like traditional media but the difference is there is a platform or space between the connection of users, which is social media. It is not hard to find someone with the same shared interests when communication is as easy as we could imagine, somehow it creates a safe space for us to express our feelings knowing the recipient has the same ideals and values.

Be that as it may, every advantage has their drawbacks, in my case, I think that the most affectual drawback for online community is digital security and privacy. With the fast-paced life in the digital world, we are only able to control the content we receive to a certain level, larger than that could lead to the spread of misinformation. Digital security and privacy can cause many problems for users, from cyberbullying to account hacking can happen in a daily basis. First, cyberbullying does not only affect youth and adolescents, but adults can be victims of it too, cyberbullying is as simple as bad-mouthing people in the cyber space. With the anonymity that social media allows users to be cyberbullying becomes easier and needs little effort (Stegner, 2023). Cyberbullies can make use of the anonymity and become hypocrites that gains the victim’s trust in person while trash-talked them online. This negative treatment is not supposed to be taken lightly, bullying can cause mental scars for the victim, trauma can appear that could affect their thoughts that might even lead to them taking their own lives. The role of digital security in this case can help by not exposing much of your lives in the online community we are a part of, where it could create a digital footprint and anything can be traced back if needed, making the account private might help reduce the cyberbullying comments. Second, the downside of an online community is the lack of privacy that could possibly lead to account hacking. Even though an online community is a group of individuals that shares similar interests and have some things in common, it does not stop the possibility of hackers joining said community for their own advantage. Nowadays, with the rise of social media and easy access to anything anywhere that anyone can access easily, the chance of someone stealing your identity or invading your privacy is bigger than ever. This correlates with how we are able to create an online identity but still we have to be mindful on what we show to the networked public because with the free access anywhere, people can just misuse said information.

To sum it all up, the increased connectivity of individuals across social media platforms enables people to create certain persona that they can alter as much as they like to show to other users, which is called an online identity, a partial part of a person’s actual identity. Easier access to things across the world validates users to various amounts of information. Moreover, social media also generates an online community where users are able to find other users that shares a common interest between them. However, we still have to be mindful on the personality we put out on the platform and with the community we are involved in because not everyone is as they seem.

Reference List
Davis, K. (2013). Young people’s digital lives: The impact of interpersonal relationships and digital media use on adolescents’ sense of identity. Elsevier, 2281-2293. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2013.05.022

Hampton, K.N. (2015). Persistent and Pervasive Community: New Communication Technologies and the Future of Community. SAGE Journals, 60(1), 101-124. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764215601714

Hampton, K. N. & Wellman, B. (2018). Lost and Saved … Again: The Moral Panic about the Loss of Community Takes Hold on Social Media. SAGE Journals, 47(6), 643-651. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094306118805415

Internet Society. (2017). Understanding Your Online Identity An Overview of Identity. Internet Society. https://www.internetsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Understanding-your-Online-Identity-An-Overview-of-Identity.pdf

Papacharissi, Z. (2010). A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites. Taylor & Francis Group.
http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/curtin/detail.action?docID=574608

Stegner, B. (2023). 7 Negative Effects of Social Media on People and Users. Make Use Of. https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/negative-effects-social-media/