Adolescents’ Online And Offline Identity: A Study On Self-Representation

Abstract

Adolescence represents a crucial period for the construction of personal and social identity. Nowadays, youths create their offline and online identity, as an undistinguishable and complex Self. Adolescents, indeed, construct their online identity as an integration of their physical and virtual persona. This integration might be difficult to represent and communicate to others. The Internet is widely spread among adolescents, and it can favour the development of risky online behaviours, which in turn can involve the occurrence of youth’s negative consequences, such as emotional problems, or difficulties in social behaviours. The present study intends to explore, in a sample of Italian adolescents, the capacity of representing the online and offline identity. This capacity is hypothesized to result in an adaptive use of the web. The sample was composed by 200 Italian adolescents, aged 14-17 years, who filled out an ad-hoc questionnaire tapping different aspects of representation of virtual reality. Adolescents revealed an unclear representation of their virtual identity. Because of their difficulties in identifying the relationship between the real and the virtual identity, the consequences of their activities in the web and in virtual communities are frequently underestimated. Identity and representation of the Self that adolescents express through social networks are very complex topics and the relationship between real and virtual identity needs further research, to carry out effective programs of prevention and intervention of problematic internet use in adolescence.