Digital identity management
In the virtual world the person can choose who they are and what characterizes them much more than in the real world, but this also mean that in the web it is easier to show a false identity.
Thanks to technology, people can choose to present themselves, deceiving themselves and others with respect to their digital identity. On the web we can make up and retouch not only our image but even more so our personality traits.
Research states that many people online change their personalities by giving an enhanced version of themselves, enhancing their positive characteristics and concealing their negative ones. In the virtual world, it is possible to release repressed aspects of one’s own self, experiment and construct a multitude of roles to escape from one’s status in daily life.
Through social networks, everyone builds their digital identity in a continuous comparison with others. In this dimension, photography allows users to show themselves to be perfect and to display the ideal self. The models that teenagers follow online are mainly those of influencers, celebrities who tell their stories through social networks and are followed by fans who leave likes or comments.
The desire for estimity allows one to “make public intimate elements of life in order to enhance them thanks to the comments” this, if not taken to excess, contributes to the growth of self-esteem.
Each person online can construct their own digital narrative: it is not uncommon to seek to appear and show what other considers socially desirable to receive consensus. The key concept becomes that of web reputation which is expressed in what others think of us: the higher the consensus of others, the higher our visibility and popularity within the network will be.