“WHO DO WE THINK WE ARE?”
Once I’ve studied and did a research about the social media I realized that it’s all organized in a clever way. We have different kind of social media for every different moment and situation of our life, or maybe they create them in purpose and we just get adapted to them so that we are the ones who provoke the different uses of social media for our daily life
We have snapchat to share with others our daily life in a short term way. Is a continuous source of information and interaction with your friends.
With Instagram we have a short term and long term sharing so that it makes it be more controlled by the Instagram services. Some people use this app to show the followers the best side of them with “the perfect picture” so they get the as many “likes” as possible. This view makes the owner of the account a “fake” person behind the screen that is trying to show something that maybe is not on the real life.
Then we have the biggest and the most important social media: Facebook. In this app we upload pictures in short term sharing but also, and most of the time, in long term. This app is use for sharing with others your social life like meetings, trips, interests, thoughts but also is getting really famous as an informative resource and as some sharing funny situations with your closest friends or family called as a “meme”
Then we also have LinkedIn created for our professional life or Youtube as a video entertainment and Netflix as the new and revolutionary TV where we can choose whatever we want to see without any advertisement.
This description makes me think about if is the new medias adapting to our social life or is it the other way and we are the ones who are getting adapted to it? I think the answer is that both sides are getting adapted to each other and that is way the new technology use is working.
In these two ways of adapting I am concerned about how can the personality of the profile can change depending on the social network they are using, on who are they talking to or what do they want to show. My questions are: Why is this happening? Is it normal or is it just a side of the communication skills? Or is it that we are losing our personality and it is developing into a “fake us” because of the social media?
I remember at the beginning of the use of the Social Networks such as Messenger a classmate wanted to start into a “chatting fight” and I got really impressed so my mother taught me that I should always be the same one in front and behind the screen. She didn’t really know about social media, but her advice was enough to always have this idea in my head and work on it.
When you have a screen in front of you it is easier to think what you want to say, for good or for bad, be can create another side of us more secure, more interesting, strong, extravertive and funny, just some qualities that everyone likes. All of this disappears whenever we are in front of those people we don’t need or want to impress.
The same happens with the pictures we post: What do we want to show? Why? How? That also make us show a side of us that is always supported not in only one picture, is the personality of more than one picture from the person. It is common that our environment sees us more on the social media than in our daily life and so we are creating the idea we want them to have about us. Is this also a communication skill? Or is the cheating side of us that the social media is indirectly making us do?
The more unnatural we are the more we are going to think about the others every time we are posting or chatting with someone else, so that will increase our insecurity, for example, or just a person that acts in order to show it to enjoy but not enjoy from it.
With the different Social Networks, we have nowadays we get the opportunity or the ability to show our followers the different sides of ourselves where in my opinion snapchat is the most spontaneous one and so it’s the closest to show our natural side.
Facebook needs more than one picture or post to really show the personality of the person, a personality that it’s builded with every comment, shared, picture or “like”. It’s the easiest way to find information about someone and get an idea about who is this person.
Identifying the personality of the different profiles online we can also see reflect on it the Psycho Analytic method of Freud: Id, Ego and Superego.
The first one is our instinctive and inherited components of our personality. Components such ass the passion (aggressive and sex instinct) that are not well view from the society. Social Networks such as Tinder can easily develop into this part of Freud’s model but also WhatsApp and it way of communication can also wake up these human instincts.
The ego is the most social part of ourselves, it looks for the approval and acceptance of the society. Same happens with Facebook, we post those things that are going to have this reaction on our “friends” reflected on a “like”, a comment or a tag on your profile. This ego can also have seen reflected in Snapchat where the profiles looks for the interaction but not only the communication in order to be socially accepted.
Also, the transformation of the sexual energy (the id) into something sociable acceptable (the ego) such as the seducing can be reflected into Instagram, a Social Network were the people shows the best side of them or even want to impress in a sexual way their followers.
The Superego is the most moral, mature and professional side of ourselves. It can be reflected on social Networks such as LinkedIn but also in some Facebook and Twitter profiles where they like to share they’re professional and trained opinion based on their conscious, measuring every single post and distinguishing between wrong and right actions, impulses and thoughts.
All these personality changes on the society makes me aware about our problems to know our identity. This identity that makes us what we are, our essence and is our “everything” as a person. We are what we want to be, what makes us be with one group or another, what we like and dislike. The variety of identities is one of the negative consequences that the Social Media is creating in our society, this variety doesn’t mean that we have different “I’s” it means that we don’t really know who we are and so that makes a struggle with what we are and what we want to show to the others.
The parents should be aware of this situation, a situation where they can also be involved. How can we train the parents with this personality problem? Training them from the beginning since an analytic and observable point of view where they can identify these situations. The schools should have workshops to teach the parents of their students to know more about the social media, workshops supported by the teachers, pedagogues and social workers were they all learn from each other in a enriching and rewarding environment.
After that, it is very important they can have a talk with their kids about the importance of knowing who they are and how they should express themselves within the social media communication skills. It’s also important that they are the example to follow for their kids and so they can see the reflection of their taught on the social medias they share. Their personality should never change because of a screen and even less if that’s is developing into a more insecure, aggressive and introvertive person that is the most common result of it.
By Ana Gutiérrez
