AVENUE FOR ESTABLISHING OUR SOCIAL IDENTITY

"Facebook has changed our social DNA," Time Magazine. In the momentum of social media, we are now able to create our social identity on the web.

Social networking and microblogging sites like Facebook and Twitter continue to set trends in the present status quo. These sites become an avenue for us to establish our own name online. Facebook is now replacing class reunions. By just having an account, we can follow the digital footprints of our close friends, among others. Twitter documents the timeline of what's going on in our lives. It nudges us to share our Twitter-shortened piece of mind on random things which may become our treasure chest of our feelings and experiences.

Keeping in touch to each other is apparently becoming frequent and a privilege. Communication of friends becomes online in nature. Despite the distance, friendship still flourishes down the road. Being away from each other is not anymore a missing scenario. 

On one hand, this momentum of social media gives us such break to reach others, even those whom we don't know. This is the good thing about the internet. If you think your mingling with others is not enough, here comes the way of reaching a wide and diverse audience. 

It sounds heartwarming if we can receive positive comments from netizens that we don't know. It somehow boosts our self-confidence to do more sharing on the web. This is good if we advocate something online or we want to share something which is worth-spending for someone's precious time.

However, in the course of doing so, we can't avoid internet prints which defy the norms of 'what is wrong' and 'what is right' based on our concepts of morality and culture. Furthermore, it's a fact that we are in charge of setting our own identity--be it online or not. That is, we have all the options to choose how the way these sites make us achieve such social identity projection.

That is, privacy is a crucial thing in social media. And, this privacy relies on us on to what extent we have to share ourselves online. For instance, we can choose who can view our photos, profiles, and other personal data entries. 

The impact of social media has really come this far. It provides us the sense of belongingness on the web. It takes us to the edge of social upheaval. After all, social media, I might add, has really changed our social DNA. Such change now depends on the matter of change for the better or change for the worse.  
Photo Credit: http://www.google.com.