Introduction
Accepting one’s uniqueness is crucial for a person’s contentment and self-esteem. Goffman (1959) postulated that human connections form character and qualities that people acquire through relationships with others. One more of Goffman’s (1959) fundamental beliefs was that social interactions were a collection of dramatic acts. According to Goffman (1959), people place great importance on how they portray themselves, which may be defined as the process of making an impression on other individuals to describe and manage social circumstances (Goffman, 1959).
Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram impact how people promote themselves. Individuals are continually linked to each other due to these sites; however, others frequently scrutinize and observe them. On social media platforms, users typically present their best selves to gain likes and remarks from other users.
Erving Goffman’s Ideas About the Presentation of Self
Goffman (1959) divides social contact into two categories: front stage and backstage. Persons in the front phase play roles and manage impressions using language, props, and costumes (Giddens, 2009). The players remove their masks and work on their appearance control.
Each person’s front and back phases have undergone alterations. Humans still want to provide an excellent first impression through their conduct in the early stages. For an interview session, people ensure they present themselves well, shake the interviewer’s hand, and speak appropriately and in an educated way.
On the contrary, individuals backstage occasionally put on a show to present things as quickly as they are. A person might receive an E on a paper, maintain a brave, undisturbed expression in class, then walk to the restroom and start crying. In this case, the character is easing their performance, yet eventually, they must put their happy face back on again and resume the classroom. The way humans portray themselves to others is central to Goffman’s (1959) social contact theory.
The Influence of Social Media on Self-Presentation
One area where individuals desire to appear their best is on social networks. On the front stage, performers modify their performances according to the audience’s feedback. On Facebook, as opposed to Instagram or TikTok, the list of acquaintances could be diverse. As a result, so could the kinds of photos and messages that individuals share with several other users.
Humans constantly strive to elevate their reputation and satisfy the demands of their viewers, regardless of who they are speaking to (Schroeder, 2018). For instance, the same narrative about what occurred at the weekend party can be completely different once told to someone’s friends and family. People might embellish the history while relating it to their colleagues to please them and live up to their standards. They may choose not to inform their parents about the number of drinks consumed there.
People who post on social media frequently want to appear in front of the camera so they can relate it to going out publicly. However, while they are by themselves, they do not try to impress anybody and act as if nobody is observing them from behind. The significant changes in people’s online profiles can be attributed to social media sites like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram.
Revisiting Goffman: Has the Line Between Frontstage and Backstage Shifted?
Compared to earlier times, when people could have been more cautious about what they communicated with others, individuals nowadays are far more prone to expose every aspect of their lives online (Auxier & Anderson, 2021). This behavioral modification makes humans significantly more inclined to conflate their development’s front and back phases. The most obvious shift is how people express their physical features.
In the past, humans were more conscious of how they appeared in public, but nowadays, individuals are far more inclined to post pictures of themselves in various settings, even if they do not always look their best. They may have paid greater attention to their public appearance in the past. People’s judgments of their physical attributes have shifted due to this behavioral shift, and they are now far more open to accepting their defects.
Another big difference in human behavior is how they show their private life. Although people used to be more secretive about their love relationships and personal affairs, they are now significantly inclined to disclose every aspect online. As a consequence of this conduct shift, which changed how they thought about their private life, they are now far more inclined to be forthright and transparent about the challenges and triumphs they encounter.
Social media has also altered the way people engage with one another. Nowadays, people are considerably more likely to communicate online than when they would have interacted more in reality (Kosnik, 2019). This behavior change makes people much more likely to consider their relationships with others as occurring online instead of individually.
Conclusion
Social media has altered how people perceive their surroundings; compared to earlier times, when people may have been more inclined to perceive the world as a fixed entity, people today are considerably more prone to believe that it is constantly changing. Due to this shift in behavior, people are now significantly more inclined to think that the world is continuously evolving and developing. The way people view the world has changed due to this transformation.
References
Auxier, B., & Anderson, M. (2021). Social media use in 2021. Pew Research Center. Web.
Giddens, A. (2009). On rereading the presentation of self: Some reflections. Social Psychology Quarterly, 72(4), 290–295. Web.
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. In Sociological Theory in the Contemporary Era (pp. 268–284). Doubleday Anchor Books.
Kosnik, A. (2019). Is Twitter a stage? Theories of Social Media Platforms as Performance Spaces. In #Identity: Hashtagging race, gender, sexuality, and nation, (PP. 20–34). University of Michigan Press
Schroeder, R. (2018). The Internet in everyday life I: Sociability. In Social theory after the internet: Media, technology, and globalization (pp. 82–100). UCL Press.