T4 - identity and digital communications

• Bjorkland (positive)

  • Autobiographical nature of social media - people enjoy recording their life events (e.g. Facebook)
  • Social media can create a version of ourselves that may not be possible in real life  
  • Constant reflexivity where you can consciously construct and reconstruct by posting and editing photos
• Miller (positive)

  • Individuals in Brazil post ‘aspirational photos’ showing themselves in cars, clothes, or houses they did not own  
  • Women go into elite clothing shops to take photos in expensive clothes but not buy anything 
  • Rejection of the structural constraints of class position in a way which is not possible in ftf life
• Boyle (positive)

  • Allows us to be more creative as a lot of digital media is made by the users themselves - like YouTube
  • He calls these users 'prosumers'
• Examples of prosumers (Boyle) 


  PewDiePie now worth millions

  TikTok stars like Charlie D'Amelio have 152 million followers

  People make a living off gaming or makeup vlogs
• McGonigal (positive)

  • Average 21 year old man has played 10,000 hours of gaming  
  • Helps young people deal with boredom and anger, learn to be creative and problem solve, work with others, and deal with failure  
  • Gamers are more optimistic and consume less food 
• Robertson (positive)

  • Gamers form 'affinity groups' with other players
  • Community and friendships develop as players meet online, collaborate, compete and communicate
• Haraway (positive)

  • Women can transcend gender, enabling them to focus on other parts of their identity
  • E.g. gender-neutral usernames allow girl gamers to avoid sexist stereotypes on masculine dominated games
• Turkle (negative)

  • ‘Goldilocks effect’ = everyone wants things to be ‘not too close, not too far, but just right’
  • Online life is safer and easier - want an idolized version of themselves in the digital atmosphere
  • Youth are ‘tethered’ to their devices and leading to a generation of fragile, indecisive individuals
• Example of Turkle's goldilocks effect 


  We can edit our photos online but can't edit imperfections or messiness in real life.
• Adorno (negative)


  Media creates false psychological needs for consumer goods that fuels capitalism and leaves us unfulfilled, alienated, and exploited
• Carr (negative)

  • Internet is ‘making us stupid’
  • Rapid transfer of information causes attention spans to fall and expect immediate gratification  
  • ‘A tide of the amateur’ - diluting the quality of journalism and art available reduces the quality of our culture and rewards the ‘wrong’ individuals  
• Example of the internet making us stupid (Carr)


  average time people spend on a website is 9 seconds and young people send an average of 100 texts a day   
• World Health Organisation (WHO)

  • Added 'gaming disorder' as a behavioural addiction in 2019
• Royal Society for Public Health

  • Instagram poorly impacts mental health
  • Users suffered from loneliness, anxiety, depression, bullying, and body image problems in a cycle of 'compare, despair'
  • Reports of social media addiction in young people, neglection of real-life friendships
  • Instagram should highlight when photos have been photoshopped to stop comparison to professionally enhanced, sexualized images 
• Example of 'compare dispare' (Royal Society for Public Health)

  Essena O’Neil, influencer, admitted most of her photos took hours to enhance and plan, despite being made to look natural