Social Media, Contemporary Identities and Self-Surveillance

Social networking has taken its position at the forefront of communication within contemporary society. In 2012, social networking giants Facebook announced that they had reached a milestone of over a billion users a month (BBC News, 2012). That is a billion people who disclose their details to the rest of the online community. Many users make additional details available to the general public; those with a more relaxed approach to privacy settings allow their photos, videos and personal movements to be visible to anyone who wishes to have a look at their profile. This critical reflection highlights that the development of mass communication allows those who embrace it (and to some extent, even those who do not) to form a structural identity for themselves from which they can then project to a globally connected society.