Intervening in Implications of Identity Shift for Youth and Development

• In Event: An Intervention for Identity Shift: Unpacking the Challenges and Discrepancies of a CMC Theory and its Future

Abstract

Dian de Vries (Utrecht University, THE NETHERLANDS), is assistant professor of Youth and Family. Her research focuses on the effects of technology on the wellbeing of children, adolescents, and young adults. Her dissertation and subsequent work have focused on the effects of social media and online self-presentation on young peoples’ self-views. This research consists of (longitudinal) survey and experimental methods. De Vries is interested in how the computer-mediated communication affords young people to present themselves positively online and how this, in turn, shapes their views of themselves. De Vries uses the identity shift framework to study the effects of positive online self-presentation on positive self-views. In a recently published study, which was an ICA CAT Top Faculty Paper in 2015, she showed that being able to present the self positively online – and subsequently doing so – increased individuals’ self-esteem. Such research aims to broaden the scope of the identity shift framework by moving away from the original introversion-extraversion outcome into an area more closely linked to wellbeing. In the future, De Vries aims to further explore if and how identity shift can play a role in promoting young social media users’ wellbeing. She therefore wonders about the longer-term and real world implications of identity shift and would like to discuss this with other identity shift researchers.

Author

• Dian de Vries, Utrecht Universtiy