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"Woman Looking at Herself in a Mirror" (1805)
by Katsushika Hokusai |
The increasing integration of information across multiple platforms has become incredibly profitable to owners of social media companies--just this summer Microsoft purchased the professional networking site LinkedIn for over $26 billion. The fluid connections between how you present yourself on different social networks, Mark Zuckerberg suggests, means that we will project one consistent image of ourselves to family, coworkers, classmates, and friends, and that image will have a greater integrity than fragmented, varied identities for different contexts.
In her 2013
book about the tech industry that developed social media, Alice E. Marwick observes that the concept of authenticity, or the authentic self, has come to be synonymous with consistency of self-representation.
How do you define authenticity?
Can a person have multiple identities and still have integrity?
How are social media limited in their abilities to express users' identity?
I define authenticity as something or someone that is 100% genuine and honest. Nothing is fake. I do however believe that person can have multiple identities and still have integrity. For example, a person could have a identity for when they're working and an identity for when they're not working. His or her "work identity" could be quiet, focused, and professional, but his or her "free time identity" could be more relaxed, outgoing, and funny. We have different identities all the time, even if we don't realize it. We act according to our surroundings, but can still have integrity. Social media is limited to express identities because people can pick and choose what information about them is displayed. It's very easy to look a certain way online and then be a completely different person in real life.
ReplyDeleteSomeone with authenticity is someone who is always honest and sincere. I would not call it having multiple identities but it does make sense that people act differently around different people and in different environments. For me personally, I am much more outgoing around my family and people that I have known for a long period of time compared to how I am around unfamiliar people. I am also more likely to be confident if I am in a small group of people compared to a large group. That does not mean that I lack integrity, it just means that I am more confident around familiar people. Social media limits the ways in which someone can express their feelings and identity because words and pictures can be misinterpreted very easily. Just because you read something a certain way does not mean that is the way in which the writer meant it.
ReplyDeleteI define authenticity as something that can be trusted and is genuine.
ReplyDelete"Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will give you the truth."
It stands to reason that the man that shouldn't be trusted is the man with no mask. Most people have first hand experience with this. Would you write a post on Facebook that details all of the trials and tribulations of your failing marriage? No. However, would you write this post on an anonymous forum dedicated to marriage counseling? Probably. Does this mean you lack integrity? Of course not.
The only limitations to expressing identity on social media is deciding which parts of your identity to express.
Authenticity in social media is defined to me as when a person represents their true selves to all of their “friends” and “followers”. There are new different social media sites such as: Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Just to name a few. With all of these sites there is different ways to manipulate your appearance or ideals to either conform with popular belief, wanting people to like you, or wanting people to think you are pretty. Many people become unauthentic in their social media identities, and can be referred to as “fake” people. It is easy to be circum to this form of misrepresentation especially if someone struggles with a bad self image. Social media has become a getaway for people, to escape their lives and become this completely different person. I believe that some people who misrepresent themselves to their “followers” and”friends” can still have integrity. People who lie on social media can still have strong moral principles and be honest to the people close to them in real life.
ReplyDeleteWhile someone using social media platforms might not intentionally manipulate the way others perceive them, there are many who end up trying to sell this idea of who they think their "true self" really is. While this line of thinking can be productively introspective, it tends to confine the individual to a stricter pattern of behavior. I think a more organic way of thinking an acting would be how I define authenticity. Many different facets of one's personality come together to form one cohesive identity.
ReplyDeleteI define an authentic person as one who stays true to themselves. People have many different personalities. We have one for school, one for work, in addition to many more. I believe personality is dynamic. Just because one doesn't act the same in every situation doesn't mean they have no integrity. So long as one stays true to themselves they possess integrity. Social media is extremely limited in its ability to showcase who a person is. In my opinion, social media is the worst way to learn more about people. People decide what they wish to display on social media. Therefore the image you gather of a person through social media is exactly what they want you to see.
ReplyDeleteI think that just because a person is more reserved on social media and they don't show every aspect of themselves does not mean that they are being unauthentic. A person can have a social media account and just use it to show their relatives how they are doing. You don't have to post in vivid detail about all of the bad things in your life. This doesn't make you "fake", it, in my opinion, make you more considerate to the people you share that space with.
ReplyDeleteA person can still be true to themselves while only selling the best parts of themselves on social media. People are multifaceted, so to say that you can only express yourself one way every time would be ludicrous. Social media limits user's true expression of themselves because you can only see the words in their 2D form. You cannot feel the passion behind the words spoken, see the person expression, or hear their tone of voice. When you post something, you hope that people understand your meaning, and not twist your words into something ugly. Without the ability to make your words come to life, social media negates that facet of your personality.
I feel that the question of authenticity is the hardest to address. If we are to agree with Sartre, as I am inclined to in this instance, living authentically is a question of accepting full responsibility of our decisions and actions as ever-changing selves. As we are continually developing as people and redefining our selves, we act and interact in multiple, occasionally vastly different, spheres. Accordingly, we represent ourselves differently. We then face the problem of representing ourselves as we are at a certain moment in time in a manner appropriate to audience and context. Here enters the concept of multiplicity of identity. We have many versions of ourselves, none independent from our core personality, but each displaying certain aspects of our personality and concealing others. The ways we represent ourselves in various contexts generally have to do with what we intend to achieve or gain in that setting. The representation of oneself at a job interview is different to that on Instagram. This isn’t due to any inauthenticity, but rather to our perception of what is beneficial or normative behavior in those circumstances. This is why we speak differently to our grandmothers than to our friends, and why our private Instagrams aren’t usually linked to our LinkedIn. Social media aren’t particularly well equipped to compile our multiplicities because while they exist for sometimes singular social purposes (Tinder, for example), they exist in the internet, a place occasionally devoid of time or defined audience. This can actually detract from the control we have over the way we are perceived. Past selves exist alongside current selves in the ether, and they exist outside of their contexts. The desire for an “authentic” online presentation isn’t driven so much by a need for truth as it is a need for cohesiveness. However, I feel that this ideal of a cohesive personality is inauthentic in aim—we are not the same person all the time, in every place. To believe so is to deny our inherent mutability, and lacking in integrity almost entirely.
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