Digital Self

• The totality of a person’s appearance, expression, behavior and interaction within the digital platform, particularly the INTERNET refers to an online identity.
• The digital world presents a different reality as compared to the actual physical reality that people usually live in.
• }  The digital world presents a different reality as compared to the actual physical reality that people usually live in.
• Ridley and Suler (2004) would refer to this extensive online sharing as “disinhibition effect” where people feel so much freedom to express their “true selves” without the fear of being seen or judged (cited in Belk, 2013).
• Catfishing – it is the act of luring someone into a (largely virtual) relationship with the use of online alter-egos.
• }  Abstraction  - the non-physical properties one gets to try and interact with when consuming technology
• }  Real-Life Reality – the reality with which you engage most frequently

  Pertains to life away from digital devices
• }  Simulation – basic purpose is to copy reality as closely as it can

  Offers uncanny representations of real-world aspects

  Can also be used for instruction
• }  Augmented Reality – this is real-life reality spliced with the unreal

  Permits you to creatively interact with both the tangible and digital world (often at the same time e.g Pokemon go, snapchats, effects on messenger etc.)
• }  Virtual Reality  - type of abstraction completely detached from real-life reality

  Here, you are granted freedom to explore open worlds using a custom-made character.
• }  Hyperreality – more than anything, this abstraction is a state of mind

  The inability to distinguish the real from the otherwise

  A utopia of the mind; people exist as the best versions of themselves.
• }  In short, our lives online revolve around performance.
• }  Front – performer’s consciousness of an audience’s expectations impacts the performance
• }  Back – where the performer can relax and be himself/herself
• }  Off-Stage – this is when the performer gets to meet members of the audience completely separate from his/her performance
• }  Impression Management – a process wherein each attempts to manufacture and present one’s self positively to avoid embarrassment (Crossman, 2018)
• Performance – refers to the set of activities in which the self participates in front of others (labeled “the audience”)
• Setting – this centers on the scenery where an interaction will take place
• Appearance – the function of appearance rests mainly on its ability to portray the self’s various statuses
• Manner – pertains to how an actor sends various signals to the audience to ultimately inform them in advance of the role he/she seeks or is about to perform
• Front – works as a kind of social script that actors follow for a more guided performance