The Clash Between the Internet and Social Identity
When it comes to discussing their digital practices and habits, people are usually on the more reserved side. It is all dependent upon the context in which they are asked, how comfortable they are with that information, and how the practices are viewed by society. This is built around their perceived social identity and the fear of affecting it. As Eriksson points out in Ethnographic Field Notes and Reflexivity, “When developing the social identity of the group, the members construct an in-group (we) and various out-groups (others) and go through a mixture of inclusion and exclusion processes, which can have both negative and positive consequences.” The idea of being part of the in group is a want of most individuals.
We as humans are social creatures and the idea of being removed and/or stigmatized by society is Earth shattering. To avoid possibly being exposed as a member of an out group, people will lie or be as discreet as possible. This is exacerbated online due (at least perceived)anonymity to the plethora of these activities available. They feel that they should do these activities in secret as a way to satisfy both the urge to do so and to save face. Though, even in the case where people do find out, the reaction is very mild and tame compared to what was expected.
It also goes back to the idea that we have a public self, private self, ideal self, and true self. The latter being one that only you truly see in full. The idea of being alone terrifies us into being a modified version of our true selves. Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing. If we were all our true selves all the time, things would devolve into chaos. We usually have a more crude mental reaction in comparison to how we physically react, especially when done in a poor manner. The problem lies in that we do not find a balanced middle ground, which further perpetuates this modified version.
People are very odd and insecure in general. Now the internet is in a way augmenting those insecurities, which both allows them to be satisfied and pushing back the chance to break the perceived stigma.
