Sexting, Selfies and Self-Harm: Young People, Social Media and the Performance of Self-Development

Abstract

As platforms for self-expression, social media sites require users to consciously, visibly, and deliberately perform their identity. While a dominant developmental discourse encourages young people to test and explore different identities, a self-conscious and highly visible performance of identity via social media brings into question the form and value of this activity. This article reviews a range of popular arguments about how young people use media, and demonstrates how this use comes into conflict with a broader developmental discourse. It proposes that this conflict contributes to the perception that young people's media use is dangerous for healthy development, and that a different kind of approach to youth is needed. Engaging Judith Butler's notion of performativity, the article argues that social media and the structures of performative display are a way to reconceptualise youth and the relationship between social media and young people's self-development.

“Who Does Not Dare, Is a Pussy.” A Textual Analysis of Media Panics, Youth, and Sexting in Print Media

“…Social media play an important role in the everyday lives of young people. Online communication via digital media has become a way of connecting with peers, which is leading to young people's public as well as private experiences being expressed via digital media platforms (Gabriel, 2014;Osgerby, 2004). Through these channels, they represent themselves, make moral decisions, and negotiate their identities, friendships, and sexuality.…”

“…Through these channels, they represent themselves, make moral decisions, and negotiate their identities, friendships, and sexuality. As Gabriel (2014) states, social media present young people with new possibilities for expression, social relations, and identity performance. Following this, the social media use of youngsters has become a site of increasing public interest.…”

“…Practices such as sexting, taking sexy selfies, and joining dating apps are being seen as threats to the healthy development of adolescents, who supposedly lack the required maturity to fully understand the consequences of the sexual content they are producing and consuming online. The risk of not being able to control what happens to personal data once it is uploaded only serves to fuel public concern about youth, sexuality, and social media (Dobson, 2015;Gabriel, 2014;Thiel-Stern, 2009).…”

“…According to Gabriel (2014), youth are self-aware when it comes to their self-representations on social media: they worry about their appearance, how others perceive them, explore their sexual and romantic interests, and try to fit in with their peers. This contradicts the image of youths as passive consumers and victims found in the deviance discourse spread via media.…”

‘A sneaky bit of stalking’: Young people, social network sites, and practices of online surveillance

“…The panic about cyberbullying and sextingtwo examples of activities facilitated by new technologies involving young people -has resulted in knee-jerk interventions that aim to 'get tough' on perpetrators and eliminate such practices altogether (Crofts et al, 2015). Nevertheless, young people increasingly use social network sites for selfexpression, entertainment, to experiment with their identities, and to belong (Davies, 2007;Evers et al, 2013;Gabriel, 2014). Social network sites are crucial tools through which they negotiate and develop their intimate relationships and encounters (Pascoe, 2011).…”