Skye Dole
Writing in a Digital World
September 24, 2015
Annotated Bibliography
Valkenburg, P. M., and J. Peter. "Adolescents' Identity Experiments on the Internet: Consequences for Social Competence and Self-Concept Unity." Communication Research (2008): 208-31. Sage Journals. Sage Publications. Web. 23 Sept. 2015. <http://crx.sagepub.com/content/35/2/208.full.pdf html>.
In this study by Patti M. Valkenburg and Jochen Peter, around 1,500 Dutch adolescents between the ages of 10-17 were asked about their online communications and social interactions. The purpose of the study was “to investigate the effects of adolescents’ online identity experiments on their social competence and self-concept unity” and to also see what variables explain how they are affected. Valkenber and Peter define identity experimentation as pretending to be somebody else or being unlike yourself while communicating on the internet. Along with this definition they also define social competence “as their ability to effectively form and manage offline interpersonal relationships” and self-concept unity is referred to as ‘the extent to which adolescents’ self-concept is “clearly defined, internally consistent, and temporally stable’”.
In the study, an online survey is used which asked if the users ever pretend to be someone else while communicating online. If the teen answered yes, the survey then continued with a series of questions including if they pretend to be somebody that is more beautiful, glamorous, intelligent, or less shy. To measure social competency the survey questioned how easy or difficult users found it to be in offline social interactions and relationships. Then using a set of different scales Valkenber and Petter determined the effect of identity experimentation on social competency and self-concept unity.
The researchers found a positive correlation between identity experimentation online and making better social interactions in person. From the results they were able to conclude that adolescents’ online communication and identity experimentation “stimulated their offline social competence”. On the other side the survey was not able to conclude that identity experimentation correlates with self-concept unity, in fact the study discovered that a large amount of the adolescents did not perceive unity in their self-concept. While the experiment concludes that online identity experimentation and communication can lead to more offline social interactions and created positive social benefits for the teens, it does not improve one’s self-concept unity.
This article will be very useful in exploring the question of what identity online really means. Identity exploration is a very common occurrence online, and it directly relates to the idea of “catfishing”, one of the main explorations in my blog post. The study does an excellent job of defining identity experimentation and what it can affect when we unplug. But I especially want to use their findings in regards to self-concept unity and how maybe we change our identity online because we have very little self-concept unity. This study was only done on teens, which leaves out a large proportion of the population, but I mostly just want to use the general ideas in this study. I think the fact that they found no correlation between identity experimentation and self-concept unity is more useful than if they had. Now I am able to explore how perhaps none of us know who we are, and we are just trying to figure it out by being other people.
Both Valkenberg and Peter are distinguished professors of Communications at the University of Amsterdam and are very trustworthy sources for consideration. Along with two considerable researchers, the experiment sites several other articles that corroborate with that their research showed, making the results even more usable.
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