Adolescents and the Internet: Identity in an online world.
According to the Wängqvist & Frisé article, online contexts are important settings for adolescent identity development in a plethora of different ways, due to the online contexts’ ability for adolescents to more freely explore their identity and carry out identity experimentation than in offline contexts. One way online contexts allow for this is by allowing individuals identifying with minority categories, such as sexual identity minority or racial minority, to easily express their sexuality and/or cultural aspects to others, and connect with others who identify as similar (2016, p. 141). This is important for identity development, as identifying with a minority group or status is not as easily and comfortably expressed in more common offline contexts. Another way in which online contexts are important for identity development, is the way in which adolescents are able to maintain anonymity online, further allowing them to explore identity aspects that are not commonly revealed in everyday offline and online life (2016, p. 146). Another ways the authors give importance towards, is how online contexts typically have very low levels of parental and adult supervision, which in turn creates high levels of autonomy for the adolescents using the online contexts, as well as the allowance for the creation of a private space (2016, p. 146). I don’t believe these ways are also applicable to adult development of identity, due to the fact that they are not using these online contexts at an adolescent age, which is also a highly developmental stage, and more development happens than in adult stages. I believe participating in online concepts has effects on adults’ identities, but doesn’t play as large of a part. Going back to the idea of digital natives in last week’s readings, since adults are more so digital immigrants, they do not use online concepts the same as developing adolescents would, and would identify less with their digital identities than the average adolescent would.
In my personal opinion and experience, I feel that social networks have a positive yet warped impact on learning through digital identity formation. SNS’s (social networking sites) give us an experience that imitates real social environments, yet the way people are able to perceive and express themselves is not comparable to a real environment, therefore not realistically expressive of individuals identities. The Bozkurt & Tu article explains that SNS sites give individuals the opportunity to exist as their “idealized selves” (2016, p. 155), rather than expressing their actualized selves. In addition, Bozkurt & Tu share a positive impact of SNS, being that they provide as suitable for intimacy and immediacy that allows individuals to communicate and interact with emotional value, which is important for digital identity formation and being perceived as real (2016, p. 161). In these ways, SNS sites have an impact on how we learn through digital identity formation, being that the concept of one’s identity can become misconstrued or idealized, and is not always as accurate as one’s true, offline identity.
I enjoyed Alec Couros’ TedTalk and appreciated him sharing how adolescents interact with and are impacted by what they do on the internet. Answering his question, “How do we help kids discover and experience the many emerging possibilities for networked, human connection while allowing them to safely grow and share their identities and the identities of others,” is not an easy one to answer, especially considering the ones teaching are digital immigrants while the ones who are learning with eventually be digital natives. With children meeting the internet age maturity of 11, I think teaching early is important, and starting with educating them on the existence of a “digital footprint”, and acknowledging that their digital identity is not easily erasable, along with a lot of the information they share publicly. I liked Couros’s idea if “teaching them through a curriculum of memes”, and believe it would be successful for going about teaching children lessons about using the internet. I also personally believe parental/adult supervision is necessary, and would even hope that one day more websites with age-restricted content and information should actually be age restricted, and harder for underage individuals to access. I also believe teaching children how to interact with others online should be as important for teaching them how to interact in real life, as much of the same social rules apply. In addition, I think it is necessary that children should be taught internet etiquette, the implications of cyberbullying, the dangers of sharing personal information online, and the risks/signs of online stalking/harassment.
