Presenting Self in the Social Media: An Analysis on Facebook Users

Social media have become a crucial part of our lives, mainly because through them one can live a virtual life, in parallel to their real life. Every day millions of people around the world share their personal information by participating in these networks. User’s Feedbacks to the personal information which are shared on Facebook and the digital identity of users by “like” button and comments lead to the emergence of new forms of communication. It is assumed that social media also satisfies the user’s emotional needs such as participation, to be seen, to be confirmed, to be accepted and to be liked. All these emotional needs are the basic pillars of self-esteem. The aim of this study is to investigate the presentation of self on Facebook and self-esteem that is caused from this self-presentation. For this purpose a group of 390 residents of Famagusta, consisting of 208 male and 182 females were surveyed. The results reveal that Facebook has a significant impact on the user’s self-esteem, which is equally affected by Facebook regardless of their gender and education level. This research has also proven that the users reveal themselves in a conscious manner or in other words attempt to represent themselves in the perfect form in order to create a stable and accepted identity and to achieve more acceptance and encouragement. The results of this study reveal that there is no significant association between the users’ gender, career and education level and the number of Facebook friends. The results also show that the main reason why the users use Facebook is to be in touch with their friends with whom they share their ideas and daily happenings. According to the results of this study, Facebook users have relations with only 62% of their friends list in the real world. Facebook users in general use the word “friend” to refer to every individual in their Facebook friends list even if they do not know them outside the virtual world created by Facebook. Everyone in the friends list have access to what users share. Therefore, it can be stated that the definitions of “friendship” and “public/private spheres” have been changed. Keywords: Facebook, Self-esteem, Selective self-presentation, Social capital, Cyber culture.