My roommate deleted her Facebook for a month and told me it was liberating. I've wanted to do the same thing for a long time, but I always chicken out. My reasons are mostly related to my procrastination habits, but I've also been thinking a lot about Facebook and identity.
How weird is it that I can tell people exactly what I want other people to know about myself? This information can range from as mundane as my favorite sports team to something as major as my religious beliefs, political views, and overall ideologies. Huh?
I've also been thinking about it as a future teacher. I feel thankful that FB didn't exist during my middle school years. I have enough embarrassing memories and photos of that period! Our future students don't have this, for lack of a better word, luxury. Many students now document their every move on Facebook.
And they've created separate online identities, too. In theory, the cool thing about Facebook is that allows you to shape others' perceptions of you: the unpopular kid can post photos to show everybody else how many friends he has, the weirdo can like the same movies as everyone else.
But if I were a middle schooler, that concept would terrify me. I still don't know who I am, but I definitely didn't know who I was when I was in middle school. I was sure I would become a judge, news reporter, or actress. I had no idea of my identity.
Students now are charged with crafting two identities: their school identity and their online identity. Are they the same, or are they different? (When I was in 7th grade, I told everybody I loved Good Charlotte but I actually loved my dad's Billy Joel tunes---which "favorite artist" would I put online?)
And as teachers, how do we deal with this? Secondary students are in the prime age of figuring out who they are and what they want to be. Juggling the usual pressures of school and puberty while also making sure their Facebook statuses get sufficient "likes" must be tough.
I think, in striving for relevancy, we tell our students that it's okay for identities to be malleable. It's okay to not know who you are right at this exact second, as long as what you're doing feels right. It's okay to not know what you want to be---because identity is comprised of many things. It's okay to feel confused, and it's okay to try new things.
It's okay not to know who you are. You'll figure it out. But in the meantime, don't try to figure it all out on Facebook.
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