An ‘open source’ networked identity. On young people’s construction and co-construction of identity on social network sites

Abstract

This chapter examines the concept of identity in relation to youth practices on SNSs. The chapter illustrates how writing “I love you” or other emotional statements on each other’s profiles on SNSs is not only a common way for Danish teenagers to communicate and practice friendship, but also an important part of their self-presentation online. It examines why these emotional statements are almost always publicly available – or even strategically and intentionally placed on the young people’s profiles. In relation to this, it is argued that young people – through their emotional communicative actions – are not only staging their own identity, but are co-constructors of each other’s identities, which the author characterises as an “open source”, networked identity.