Sandie Ramirez-Mayorga Summary/Response #3

Sandie Ramirez-Mayorga Summary/Response to:

Davis, Jenny L. “Triangulating the Self: Identity Processes in a Connected Era.” Symbolic Interaction, vol. 37, no. 4, 2014, pp. 500–523. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/symbinte.37.4.500.

Summary

Jenny Davis did an impressive job in trying to demonstrate the reasons why people on social networking sites (SNS) update their status and what type of perception others see about the person updating audiences in her article, Triangulating the Self: Identity Processes in a Connected Era. In the article Davis writes, "This gap between perception of self and perception of others is theoretically important and highlights several things. First, it illuminates the tension within selfing processes between performativity and the moral imperative of authenticity - - or the necessity of hiding performative efforts from others and from the self."(518) She not only describes the notion of a SNS user to be participating in performative acts, she also points out that the reasons users do this not always is to remember where they've been, rather it is to impress their audience about the whereabouts even if it doesn't correctly identify who they are offline. She also adds, "...maintaining an ideal-authentic balance in light of frictionless sharing and pervasive documentation means not only posting identity-affirming content but also engaging in documentable identity-affirming activities."(510) Through this Davis argues that SNS users typically update audiences because they feel like they have a reputation to uphold and thus feel like without sharing, they basically don't exist. She supports this notion by adding, "Successful identity verification relies upon the (perceived) acceptance of the presented identity by other, and more directly, it relies upon identity affirmating interactions."(505) Because a person is expected to divide themselves into a multi-dimensional person, their identity pretty much relies on whether their audience perceives them as they should or not. Davis proves that not only are people closely related to things they share online, what they share online basically defines their identity to themselves.

Response

Upon reading the article, I think she does a great job in arguing that online audiences perceive us a certain way based on what we share on social media. Although I don't particularly agree with her when she states that social media users presumably only post things because they want to impress their audience. I mean I guess I can see where she's coming from but I believe she should have some how turned into a statistical find rather than making the general implication that all users share to feel important. Moreover, I think she did a great job in explaining how a social network user splits themselves into a multi-dimensional being in order to share so much on a social platform. I also think it's important that she shares accounts of various study participants in order to come to various conclusions it allows the reader to realize that some people definitely do things different when it comes to what, how, when, and why they share things on social networking sites.

Quotations

"Achieving an ideal-authentic balance entails accomplishing a particular version of the self, but doing so in a seemingly natural way' it is to engage in identity work, while hiding the labor of doing so."(505)

"...the integration of past, present, and future offline interactions within online spaces- updated both in real time and asynchronically- aid in the negotiation of experiential and relationship meanings."(507)

"... like all arenas of identity performance, digitally mediated identity performance represents a particular version of the self. ...networked individuals curate their performances on social network site platforms, highlighting, omitting, and strategically framing identity-based content."(508)

"...many participants express the notion that if one does not post something online, it does not "count," making digital documentation a key criterion of verifiability. "(514)

"In a networked era, the social network site becomes a key interactional arena through which social actors become elicit feedback on identity performances, collaboratively bringing selves into being"(515)

"These artifacts consisting of text, images, tagged connections, and geo-locational check-ins, show audiences a great deal about users' tastes, networks, and personalities."(515)