Educational Approach To Technology-Related Young Relationships: Digital Identities, Privacy And Intimacy

Abstract

Digital identities shared in online socialization environments are key performatives influencing affective relationships. Current debates on the concept have highlighted the importance of taking this construction into account when understanding socialization processes of young people, in which multi-focal cultural influences are at stake. This study, based on a qualitative methodology structured according to the precepts of digital ethnography, tries to approach the elements that make up the digital identities of young people on Twitter and Instagram. After working with 528 different profiles, relevant information is obtained on the elements making up personal biographies according to the different predefined interfaces. Conclusions got show the ways in which the scenarios that social networks draw become spaces for social experimentation and otherness’ game. Also, they show a deconstruction of intimacy and privacy concepts. The importance of taking into account the emotional and affective level in educational environments is taken into account in order to improve psycho-pedagogy intervention and counselling.

Keywords: Emotional developmentidentityinterpersonal relationshipssocial mediayouth

Introduction

Understanding identity as "the feeling of relevance and identification with individual and collective interests and motivations" (Romero-Rodriguez, 2014, p. 31) compels us to understand the beings who develop these identity processes as immersed in an environment that drifts and compromises. Identities have been understood as inescapable traits of people, as something defining and seen in them.

For years now there has been a discussion (Bullingham & Vasconcelos, 2013; Rizo-García, 2011; Serrano-Puche, 2012), based on the work Goffman (1959), of the ways in which we begin to play a role based on an idea that we want to represent in the co-presence of figures that we find evocative of certain trends in acting. We preceded present and future behaviors, and, based on these predictions, we present ourselves and act with certain objectives, always depending on the kind of relationship we want or we expect to establish. In a resource kit based on shared feelings and relationships, an interactive link is generated that will define the perceived identity. All this within a framework of regions, situations, assumptions, social and moral demands, non-explicit obligations, disturbances, and so on. In short, there is a certain strategic orchestration, of which we can be aware and/or architects, aimed at keeping a place for ourselves in a specific social location. Behaviors from present or absent people, which in social life would be comparable to people assuming more passive roles in group interactions, also modify these interaction dynamics.

In the present-day context, Zygmunt Bauman is one of the authors whose thesis provides greater relevance and making easier to understand the concept of identity in a changing society. His works on the concept of the liquid society (Bauman, 2000) attempt to draw clean lines placing the individual in a clearly determined context because of a capitalist system. Thanks to the metaphor of the liquid, Bauman argues for a status change concerning lives, relationships and worldviews: from a great idea of stability that would dominate the solid state of life, to a constant flow that would be forced, without drift to highlight the liquid state, which is close to the current reality and tinges it with despair. Under a supposed notion of freedom closely linked to the consumer society’s future, individuals are not able to assume this freedom without feeling anxiety and detachment when they cannot control or answer certain questions about an uncertain future. The process for developing an identity (Bauman, 1999, 2000) also reflects the liquid societies’ flows, so that it is required to be as versatile as the life course. The fact that this identity is necessarily self-developed, autonomous and self-referential (Bauman, 2000) meets the requirements of a competitive and individualistic consumer market, which will have a violent impact on the way in which our social bonds and affections are linked.

Many theories consider an identity concept scarred by history and cultural heritage, which requires acknowledge the past, anchorage in a physical and social environment and a sense of belonging to a specific reference group. In short, identity is understood to be linked to a "dynamic, relational and dialogical process that always develops in relation to one another" (Serrano-Puche, 2012, p. 108). For this reason, we find ourselves with a fluid identity, reconstructed through social movement and exchange between people who influence each other in a direct or indirect way. This movement also establishes values and trends accepted or rejected from the proactive narration of a particular self (Hall & Du Gay, 2003).

Several studies published in recent years (Ballesteros & Megías, 2015; Boyd, 2014; Colás-Bravo, González-Ramírez, & de Pablos-Pons, 2013; Richardson, 2016; Rodriguez-San Julian & Megías-Quirós, 2014) have focused on a specific collective to analyze digital identities and interactions on the web: youth. Young people and teenagers, especially minors, are understood as priority test subjects, so the knowledge generation about their uses and technological practices seems to be objectively assumed as necessary. In addition to technological issues, it is important to highlight the evident presence of feelings in socio-personal development (García-Vázquez, Ordóñez, & Arias-Magadán, 2014; Venegas, 2013).

Research Questions

Our research mainly aims at detecting significant lines describing peculiarities on affective boundaries of young people established through ICT, especially around the communicative traits of emotional and couple interaction. In particular, we try:

• Expose certain differentiating features of the digital identities expressed, detecting the characteristics that define and shape the new ways of representing the self in virtual spaces.

• Detect the features that make up the public digital communicative model deployed around digital identities.

• Elaborate guidelines and proposals for reflection, training and intervention from an educational perspective geared towards the critical and active use of ICT in the framework of interpersonal relationships.

Research Methods

Our research is involved within a model based on the updated concept of virtual ethnography (Horst, Hjorth, & Tacchi, 2012; Pink et al., 2016) which, in turn, incorporates a narrative-biographical approach (Fernández-Cruz, 2010). Within this framework, we deal with information obtained from the study of 403 profiles on Instagram and 125 profiles on Twitter of boys and girls belonging to different Asturian educational centers over an 8-months period (January 2015 - August 2015). The research involved students from 12 urban and rural educational centers who, at the time they were in this field, were in their fourth year of secondary education (15-17 years old). The sample was intentionally selected according to the involvement of the guidance teams from different centers in the institutional Asturian sexual education agenda "Ni Ogros Ni Princesas" (“Not an ogre, not a princess” in Spanish).

In order to access the sample, a specific protocol for action was deployed. The first step was to explain to the potential participating centres the objectives and nature of the research in order to obtain a sufficient set of related organisations. Subsequently, and after resolving all the pertinent doubts and/or questions with the people in charge on each centre (management team, orientation team, etc.), access to the different classes of 4th year of compulsory secondary education available was requested. The researcher attend all these face-to-face sessions to present this research, explaining every particularity and making a proposal for voluntary collaboration to the students on every group. People who finally wanted to be involved in the research had to follow any of the Instagram or Twitter accounts created especially for this study. These people would then receive a follow back, so they would be linked to the process. Thanks to this link we were able to access personal information and social activity involved in this testing. The profiles generated, both with the same user name (@iddigital), were displayed according to criteria of of personal data anonymization and dissociation.

The information from the profiles was collected using several qualitative strategies and tools: direct observation, writing of a digital field journal and monitoring of the profiles through a computer application created specifically for this purpose called AUTOGRAM. AUTOGRAM allowed to obtain raw data of the treated profiles. Specifically, the data collected were: shared images, texts on posts and interactions, emoticons used in publications and interactions, #hashtags used in publications and interactions, links used in publications and interactions. AUTOGRAM incorporated an image analysis API identifying characteristics such as the number of people tagged on images or some features of the faces detected. This image analysis utility made easier the reading and subsequent qualitative treatment of the visual content worked on.

Findings

The data were analyzed according to their multi-contextual nature and format. First, and concerning field journal entries and direct observation, specific categories, subcategories and keys were proposed. This categories system launched from the first screening of initial information gave us a general overview of the most relevant topics for the study, as well as the most redundant and/or noteworthy ones. The data were presented in the form of maps of interrelated categories and subcategories. The category maps were very useful for the discussion as they made it possible to organize the evidence detected around major themes that were later broken down by the subcategories detected. Secondly, the information quantified through AUTOGRAM made it possible to indicate references and frequencies such as the number of times a specific expression was repeated or the number of uses of a specific emoticon. This detection and quantification of results was very useful in relating the findings to the categories previously described.

For the specific questions concerning this paper, the first step is to indicate the number of profiles we have worked with. In particular, for the information expressed here, we must focus on those profiles having a fullfilled specific section for public presentation of digital identities (biography) since this information will allow us to draw a generic profile of the self-represented and shared public self.

By public presentation of digital identities we mean the information shaped and presented by every individual in their Twitter and Instagram profiles in a public way, which can be accessible to everyone. On Twitter and Instagram this information is called "biography". The biography is a limited and formally structured space where characters, emoticons and images can appear. These biographies aim at synthesizing a person's digital identity, so that by simply reading what is expressed in this restricted environment we can understand who they are and what they are looking for. A distinctive feature of biographies is that they are always public, although all other information shared through the profile (publications and interactions) is private and limited to a specific number of people (generally, accepted contacts). This obligation, which is accepted by the user and required by the social network, determines the way in which the privacy of the digital activity is managed and, therefore, the intimacy perceived and assumed.

For this analysis we have selected at a specific time those profiles including data, at least the profile picture and personal information. We have ignored those profiles without data in the personal information section because we consider them to be inconclusive in order to understand the purpose of the analysis previously specified in this section. Altogether, we worked with 276 profile biographies on Twitter and Instagram that met all the proposed requirements. When we find ourselves with different interfaces, each social network has its own peculiarities when it comes to dealing with the results obtained. On Instagram’s biographies, we have focused on the different elements of analysis: @Username / Name / Profile photo / Personal information. On Twitter’s biographies, we have focused on the different elements of analysis: @Username / Name / Profile photo / Cover photo / Personal information / Linked links.

Discussion and conclusion

Some of the conclusions and keys to the educational approach to affective relationships brokered by digital socialization environments that we have found are the following.

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