Two Selves or True Selves?

Social media is used to express yourself, whether you’re liking, sharing, commenting, or creating your own posts. A comment or post can get you praise or get you called out, especially if it seems out of character.

People outside see the difference between someone’s personality online and in reality and wonder why they act so differently when it comes to social media.

Sophomore student Xavier Prodroykin thinks that “the way people act online and in person can be so different. They can be very outgoing and vibrant online [even if they] are quiet and keep to themselves when they’re in a classroom.”

Prodroykin is not alone in recognizing this sometimes stark difference. Sophomore Margaret Weber has also seen people acting differently online, sometimes for the worse.

“Pressure that people feel to be liked makes them act differently online because online you can only post what you want people to see. Everyone is posting when they look and feel their best, which makes others feel the need to be the same. The internet also gives a sort of security blanket that makes you feel more comfortable saying and doing stuff you wouldn’t normally do,” she said.

But even if you were using your platform for good, that doesn’t mean that everyone else does. A lot of people have multiple accounts, allowing them to be multiple different people at once. Some keep these accounts as a backup in case of a hack or ban, but some use that power to comment rude things about people and make content that is targeted at someone for the wrong reasons.

Sophomore Sarai Hanny-Pursley thinks that “it’s not ok to use [online anonymity] as an advantage for bullying because that makes it worse for other people.”

Yet she does have some empathy for those who do, believing these behaviors can come from “many things like jealousy or feeling like they don’t belong. And they [act differently] so they can feel some type of relief that they are not the only ones also going through something. Even if they have a good life, they might be feeling out of place or judged sometimes, which can also change a person into being mean and wanting to bring pain to someone else,” she said.

We’re all different in real life than we are on social media. We just need to find the balance like Hanny-Pursley has.

“I feel like I can be myself online with a game and playing with people who like the same things as I do, but I also have people who like me for who I am in the real world.”