Digital Identity and Youth

Today, "digital identity" has become a concept that users, especially young people as the first adopters of new technologies, encounter in their daily lives. The present paper tries to examine and analyze the digital identity of young people and how their identity is perceived and represented in the social media space. The present study was conducted using a qualitative approach and semi-structured interview technique with 20 young people through purposive sampling and face-to-face and online interviews. Thematic analysis technique was used to extract and analyze the findings. The findings include three main themes: “self-fluidity,” “arbitrary freedom,” and “consumerism syndrome of everyday life,” along with ten sub-themes: “self-actualization,” “self-will,” “self-deception,” “freedom from obstacles and limitations,” “multiplicity of my interactions, discomfort of interacting with others,” “free satisfaction of needs,” “motivation for excellence and approval,” “ostentatious consumption,” and “hedonistic and passive consumption.” The findings indicate the deep and multifaceted role of social media in the self-recreation and continuous representation of youth identity. In this space, they are active actors who create, reconstruct, and represent their identity in the context of symbolic choices, interactions with others, and their feedback.