Digital identity built through social networks

Abstract

This paper reviews on how social networks have become a space for identity construction in adolescents and young people. In the first place, the study aims to analyze all the implications that this stage entails and are addressed, with its main characteristics and, above all, emphasizing the implicit cognitive framework. This lead to observe why adolescents are more likely to get carried away by what is published through social networks. Secondly, it addresses how the process of construction of our identity is discussed, a process that develops in the stage of adolescence and youth, after childhood and before adulthood. Thirdly, this identity construction is placed in the current context, specifically, in the current digital age, with the premise that social networks are the main precursors of this developing identity. This is why in the fifth point of the paper, the presence, or rather, omnipresence of digital devices and social networks will be analyzed with greater emphasis. In the sixth point, the construction of a digital identity is presented, an identity built in parallel to the real one. The paper seeks to understand why this construction represents a strong dilemma for young people when trying to combine both, but at the same time differentiating them from each other. This means that young people have to learn to identify themselves and differentiate themselves from others, while finding a certain congruence between what they are, what they are not and what they show to others. Finally, as a way of conclusion, we emphasize in the importance of the adult guiding in this process of identity construction. The importance of a critical education is highlighted, which leads to the development of analytical and reflective thinking, which questions in depth what youngers see on social networks, while trying to build their own personal version of themselves and the world around them.