Impression Management

“Is This John Or Jane Doe? ”

The desire we have to make a favorable impression on others is very strong, so many of us work very hard to maintain our desired image. The development of online social sites has been one of the major ways in which people manage their identities. These social networks have been the gateway of communication for many people to present themselves in the online world settings than in face-to-face environments. The ways people interact has been greatly changed by online social media allowing anyone to create different identities, which can be anonymous and can lead to deviant behavior.

People use social media as a way to create different identities and set forward information about themselves they consider positive. Impression management is the concept of attempting to influence how other people perceive or think of you. Using impression management provides people with the skills necessary to create custom views of there own life. As Rosenbloom writes “People, of course, have been electronically styling themselves for as long as there has been a Web to surf (Rosenbloom).” This helps a person build relationships and have the ability to change who they are in social media through impression management. Many users of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to name a few usually monitor their online activity on a daily basis, some even on an hourly basis. I have observed many friends; family and co-workers make social media one of their daily activities. While some are very private and reserved in the information posted on the sites, others use it as an opportunity to display their everyday lives as publically and raw as possible. Broadcasting information about life, feelings, likes, dislikes, and displaying their best photos. People are often influenced by societies standards to portray his or her life a certain way in the media depending on the audience. As Rosenbloom mentions “Now that first impressions are often made in...