KWASI BOATENG
PROF. HAMILTON
COMM 11
23 November 2015
Reasoning and Analysis: Identity Management "All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts." This quote by Shakespeare sums up impression management pretty well, it is the controlling or regulation of information in order to guide or influence other's opinions of us for social or personal reasons. People can manage almost anything, but the most common is the impressions that we make on others, which is more specifically termed self-presentation. Impression management online and in person isn't always intentional and-or duplicitous because people often engage in it even when they are not actively attempting to do so. In this age of information and technology it's not surprising that the use and control of information plays a central role in our lives, and that’s exactly what social media is. There are any number of reason why people engage in impression management online and in articles by authors Rosenbloom Stephanie, Safronova Valeriya and Jacquelyn Smith, they each talk, to some degree, about the importance of and a few reasons why people use impression management on social media sites and apps.
There are people that use social media as a way to reinvent themselves, they create personas that are in no way similar to who they are in person, but that rarely happens, more often than not, people just create a persona that emphasizes a trait or personality that they are proud of. In "Putting Your Best Cyberface Forward" the author writes, "photographs people post on the sites are about more than showing what individuals look like. Rather, members carefully choose photos to display aspects of their personalities" (Rosenbloom 2). In this same article the author quotes a 44 year old actor, “I use photos that describe me...“Photos of me in the kitchen, photos of me with friends. I use it to describe my personality: friendly, outgoing, nothing very explicit. I’m a pretty conservative person. I was raised in a Roman Catholic family” (Rosenbloom 2). So basically what's happening is that people pick and choose parts of their personality or lifestyle and build an online identity around it. Another example that the author talks about is when people on dating sites use pictures that are a few years old or when they fudge their weight, height or age.
Social media has become an integral part of society, so much so that Facebook could be the deciding factor in your job consideration. Because of this a lot of job-seeking social network users build online identities that are generally appealing to employers or at least not appalling to them. In "How Social Media Can Help or Hurt You in Your Job Search" by Jacquelyn Smith, she quotes research done by careerbuilder.com to give job seekers a better understanding of the role social media plays in their job search. She states, "First they found that 37% of employers use social networks to screen potential job candidates"(Jacquelyn Par.8) That means that two out of five employers are looking at your profiles for reasons not to hire...or hire you, it's no wonder that people are engaging in impression management. She wraps up her article by giving readers and potential job seekers advice on what employers look for and the things to avoid posting when on the prowl for a job.
The kind of identity people create online differs based on the medium, people tend to be professional on LinkedIn while also being a party animal on Facebook, and a gaming geek on youtube. In her article "Millennials and the Age of Tumblr Activism" Valeriya Safronova talks about how people are more politically and socially conscious on twitter than the other social media sites. She says, "Because of the anonymity it allows and the variety of media it can host, Tumblr gives young people a chance to experiment with different personas, many of which might not match the ones their friends and family are familiar with" (Safronova par.5). On other sites like Facebook and Twitter users usually engage with friends, family and acquaintances, but on Tumblr they connect through themes and interest. But what happens when the persona or identity you create online doesn’t match who you truly are, does passion on twitter or Tumblr translate to passion and participation in real life? The author quotes Ms. Katwiwa, who described a time when she organized a protest on tumbler with about a thousand people, of which only 400 showed up. Users on Tumblr create these identities of perhaps what they hoped they were, and they start to think that’s all they have to do, so when it's time for their real world counterpart to jump in they flake out.
I know this guy called Steve, like me he is a Ghanaian and an avid social media user. He is a very good friend of mine and we hangout very often, but when we do, we do nothing, but whenever we actually does something he floods all his social media accounts with information and pictures. He has hundreds of followers and he always has some pretty girl with him. He Meets all of his girls through Facebook and Instagram and he doesn’t keep them around for more than a few week because in real life he is a shitty person. He sleeps all day, and is very apathetic. But on his social media he has all these trendy outfits, cool rap videos that I help him film and he is always posting something cool. But he literally does nothing with his life, If his older brother or I don’t take him somewhere, he doesn’t go anywhere. But he is more known in the Ghanaian community than both of us combined. He is basically managing the best parts of his life: his rap talent, sense of humor and fashion. But none of the bad: like his sloth like lifestyle or the fact that he has no pride in who he is.
Technology and social media makes it easy to get to know people and to communicate, but also to engage in impression management. This isn't something new and it isn't something that’s restricted to the internet, we do it everyday, sometimes without even realizing it. Online, people will build profiles that highlight a favorable trait that they have or one that acts as a second resume for future employers or even create identities as a way to further a cause. But engaging in highly deceptive forms of identity management runs the risk of people seeing through your act. So as with everything else in life worth doing, we must be careful not to overdo it, because it is and integral part of maintaining relationships.

Work cited
Rosenbloom, Stephanie. "Putting Your Best Cyberface Forward." The New York Times.3
January 2008. Web. 7 October 2012.
Safronova, Valeriya. "Millennials and the Age of Tumblr Activism." The New York Times. 19
December 2014. Web.21 December 2014
Smith, Jacquelyn. "How Social Media Can Help (or Hurt) You in Your Job Search" Forbes,16
April 2013. Web. 15 October 2013