Name: Pham Thi Lan Huong

Class: 19E4
Student ID: 19040100

TOPIC 3: MY SOCIAL NETWORKING

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The Dalai Lama XIV once said, “We human beings are social beings. We come
into the world as the result of others’ actions and survive here in dependence on
others." Ourselves are defined not just by our views but also by how other people
see us. In other words, cultural and social interactions are essential to the
development of a person's identity, especially to an adolescent. With the
tremendous development of technology, especially the advent of social networking
sites, people have been able to overcome geographical distances and language
barriers to communicate with people from different cultures. The following essay
will give a brief definition of identity and specify the influences of social media on
communication and socialization as well as how they affect identity formation
based on my personal experience.

Foremost, according to Aronson, Wilson & Akert (2010), identity is "self-concept,

which is the knowledge of who we are" and "the characteristics, feelings, or beliefs
that make a person different from others". To put it simply, identity is the way you
define yourself, the way people think about you, and the characteristics that define
you. The identity formation of a person is based on the culture and social groups
that they belong to and their self-awareness. Therefore, identity continuously
changes throughout each person's life whenever they interact with new people, new
environments, and explore new things. 

When the ubiquitous presence of the Internet and other new media are added as a
tool of cultural change, the formation of identity is heavily “transformed in new
and even more global ways” (Worsham, 2011). According to the data retrieved
from the International Telecommunication Union, the percentage of individuals
using the networking sites increased from 29 to 57 in just a period of 10 years from
2010 to 2020. During the same time in Vietnam, this rate also rapidly climbed
from 30 to more than 70%. It can be said that the youth's communication and
socialization are directly and deeply affected by these online websites. As
teenagers begin to form their personal identities, social media is considered an
accessible open-source of information that they can refer to in addition to real-life
sources.

Personally, I am a very frequent social media user. Compared to my friends, I was

exposed to the internet at a very early age because my parents bought me a
personal computer in 3rd grade. However, by that time, my use of the computer
was only limited to studying and playing a few simple entertainment games. I also
created a Facebook account in 2011 but did not use it very often because then most
people were still communicating with each other by regular calls and texts. By the
early years of my high school years, the number of people using social networks to
interact had increased significantly due to its considerable advantages. The
traditional way of communication became sparse and only was used in non-close
relationships or when having no internet. Up to now, I own at least 2 Facebook
accounts and regularly surf other social networking sites like Instagram, Zalo,
Tiktok, and Youtube. Not only entertainment and chatting with friends, my study
and work also depend heavily on these websites. Each time participates in a new
course, the monitor will create a group chat on Zalo or Facebook to facilitate
information exchange between teachers and students. Checking work progress,
reporting work, or attending meetings are also conducted online. Especially in the
context of the covid 19 pandemic, studying and working from home has become a
common global trend to minimize the spread of the disease. I also have a chance to
make friends with people in different countries so far away from me that when my
city goes dark, the sun where they live is still shining brightly. It is undeniable that
social networkings is extremely dominating my communication and socialization.

However, the experiences of using social media are not always positive. Backing
in my first year of high school, I was tasked with designing a PowerPoint for a
midterm assignment. At that time, websites helping users access available
templates like Canva or Google slides had not yet launched, and I myself did not
know how to properly design a PowerPoint, therefore the product I made did not
live up to everyone's expectations. For the convenience of teamwork, we have
created a 10-person group chat on messenger. There are three of them who are
closer to each other than the other members of the team so they have a private
group chat. They texted each other to criticize my work, but instead of talking in a
private group, they mistakenly messaged in the public group. Not only did they
criticize my work, but they also made negative comments about my appearance.
As soon as they discovered the mistake, they promptly kicked me out of the group.
However, I can still read the previous messages even after leaving. Although
everything they said was true and I could see the lack of competence in my poor
work, the heavy words they uttered and the act of kicking me out of the group hurt
me deeply. I have received apologies from those people and forgiven them. I also
became close friends with one of them because we were placed in the same
university class. But it has been 6 years since then hardly have I taken on the task
of designing powerpoint anymore but only synthesizing content and being a
presenter. That event made me self-deprecating and doubtful about myself, feeling
like I could not do anything well and did not dare to voice my opinion in group
discussions anymore. We can immediately forget the words we accidentally utter
in the heat of the moment, but the listeners cannot get them out of their minds.
Words are like an invisible knife, they pierce our heart without bleeding but stay
there forever, forming a wound that never closes. And when those words are given
the shape of a text, it multiplies the pain the listeners have to endure.

There may be two identities existing side-by-side in an individual: an online

identity that a person establishes in an online environment such as social networks
and an offline identity that she or he establishes in an offline environment such as
in real life. The person you appear online may be the same or not as the person you
are. The way I behave online is also different from how I behave in real life.
People who have physical interactions with me commented that I am a friendly,
smiley, talkative person and usually the one to initiate conversations, even with
strangers. A friend of mine even drew me a picture of a sunflower field because
she felt that I was on all occasions full of positive energy, just like sunflowers
always following the sun. But when turning on my phone, I am a different "me".
Another "me" is tired and negative, another "me" has been undergoing treatment
for severe depressions and anxiety disorders. I take no pleasure in showing these
dark sides to my close friends, fearing that they would worry about me or be
affected by my blue mood. As for those who are not too close, I do not trust them
enough to share my stories and am also afraid of their harsh judgments. But
somehow I feel more comfortable talking about my true feelings to online friends I
have never met. Maybe it is because we do not really know each other. Turning off
the phone and walking out the door, we are different people with different roles
and different lives. On the internet, we are simply ourselves in the truest way. As I
mentioned before, besides the main account, I have another clone account that
doesn't make friends with anyone, but only uses it to share my favorite posts or
occasionally write down a few lines. No one knows who I am so I can just be the
way I am without fear of being judged. Honestly, maybe not only me but many
other young people choose to hide their truest selves because the relationships,
responsibilities, and judgments of the society in real life do not allow them to
express their personal identity but focus more on social and cultural identity.
In conclusion, the formation of identity is heavily impacted by online communities
and social networks both in positive and negative ways. Our identity can be
influenced by other people and the way other people behave toward us is not really
their true identity but it is essential that our identity is constantly changing and
requires self-awareness to be perfected. The best identity should be the
combination of cultural and social identity with their own characteristics.

(Word count: 1452)

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REFERENCES

Aronson, E., Wilson, T. D., & Akert, R. M. (2010). Social Psychology (7th ed.)
Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall

Boyd, D. (2007). Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked
Publics in Teenage Social Life. In D. Buckingham (Ed.), MacArthur Foundation
Series on Digital Learning Youth, Identity, and Digital Media Volume. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.

Singh, C. (2010). New Media and Cultural Identity. China Media Research, 6(1),
86-90.

Weinstein, E. (2018). The social media see-saw: Positive and negative influences
on adolescent’s affective well being. New Media & Society, 20 (10), 3597-3623.