With the powerful Internet, our social network no longer limited to people around us. In the virtual world we can even be friends with a person we will never met, without limitation of time and place in real world. Do we have the same persona in the two totally different worlds? Or are we trying to be a better version of ourselves on the internet?
When there is a person around, we will try to make ourselves more glamorous and avoid negative outcomes in front of them Goffman call it the “Impression Management” or “Self Presentation”. It means people try to control the process of others forming an impression of self in some ways. Usually, people tend to create a suitable impression of themselves base on current society situation and their backgrounds. It is a basic component in real world social activities as appropriate impression can assist a successful communicate. For example, impression management is widely used in job interviews. It helps create positive impression of the interviewee and helpful for him/her getting the job. In the Internet era, this concept also developed into digital identity. Which is “the online representation of an individual within a community, as adopted by that individual and/or projected by others. An individual may have multiple digital identities in multiple communities”(Andy Powell).
Although we try our best to look good, we can’t deny that we were born with limitations preventing us to be an “ideal me”. Such as our appearance, ability, location etc. Goffman compares social life as a drama. People will have “front stage” and “backstage” where they need to be formal or relaxed. In the real world, we have many “front stages” and need to perform different persona at different time. For example, we are the student when we are in a class and we need to be formal with our teachers and classmates, but when we are in the “backstage” like at home, we can relax with our family. We need to spend large amount of efforts to improve our weaknesses and may even fail, but on the Internet no one knows who we are. It is easy to hide our weaknesses and create the “ideal me”. Same as the real world, we can have multiple personas on different platforms. For example, we can be an “expert” on twitter and a funny guy on Instagram. Different from the real world, we have more variety on the Internet. We can act different personas at the same time as there is no limit of time and place on the Internet. We don’t need to concern identity, time and place and only need to focus on our audiences and what we are trying to look like, which make impression management much easier in virtual world than in real world. People seldom comment on the others in front of people which makes the evaluation of impression management difficult. While on the Internet people can get feedbacks by likes, comments and re-tweet of their messages. They can improve their impression management strategy base on those feedbacks. Even more, the social media platforms’ creativity allow us to look more similar to what we expect using edits, filters, and emojis where it is impossible in real life. Despite it is convenient using the Internet to create positive impression, there is a risk of abusing and information leaking. It will impact people’s reputation and even lead to cyber bully.
After all, the real world is the real world, the virtual world is the virtual world, and you are you. The real world and the virtual world is different and people should not bring the “ideal me” on the Internet to real world overly and prevent leaking too much personal information online at the same time.
Reference
Paddy Scannell, 2007, Media and Communication, pp.149 Available from Full details and actions for Media and communication (vlebooks.com) Accessed 5th Nov.
Sabreen Haziq, 2019, Putting the best digital self forward in the age of Social Media, p.5. Available from Putting the best digital self forward in the age of Social Media | by Sabreen Haziq | Medium. Accessed 5th Nov
Your digital world – The Digital Student – Library at University of Hull. Accessed 6th Nov
