Citation

Yang CC, Bradford Brown B. J. Youth Adolesc. 2015; 45(2): 402-416.

Affiliation

Department of Educational Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 880A, 1025 West Johnson Street, Madison, WI, 53706, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s10964-015-0385-y

PMID

26534776

Abstract

Self-presentation, a central element of young people's identity development, now extends from face-to-face contexts to social networking sites. Online self-presentation may change when youth transition to college, faced with the need to reclaim or redefine themselves in the new environment. Drawing on theories of self-presentation and self development, this study explores changes in youth's online self-presentation during their transition to a residential college. It also examines associations between online self-presentation and students' self-esteem and self-concept clarity. We surveyed 218 college freshmen (M age = 18.07; 64 % female, 79 % White) at the beginning and again at the end of their first semester. Freshmen's Facebook self-presentation became less restricted later in the semester. Broad, deep, positive, and authentic Facebook self-presentation was positively associated with perceived support from the audience, which contributed to higher self-esteem contemporaneously, though not longitudinally. Intentional Facebook self-presentation engaged students in self-reflection, which was related to lower self-concept clarity concurrently but higher self-esteem longitudinally.

FINDINGS clarified the paths from multifaceted online self-presentation to self development via interpersonal and intrapersonal processes during college transition.

Language: en