Yopina Galih Pertiwi
Abstract
The rapid development of the informational technology system has been influencing the lives of many people in the world. Communication system between individuals has now changing, from the face-to-face interaction into online interaction. Most of the people in the world have access to the internet, and not excluding adolescents. In Indonesia, teenagers have become the largest internet users, and many of them use internet to participate in the social networking sites, such as Facebook. By participating in Facebook, adolescents are able to make friends, to widen the networkings, to broaden their knowledge, and even to become whatever they would like to be, by creating online personal profile. This study aimed to investigate adolescents’ self-presentation in the online world, particularly by using their Facebook accounts. A total of 12 high school students (16-17 years) and 10 undergraduate students (20-24 years) participated in a qualitative study to explore their online relational-self. Among them, five participants were selected to be followed on their Facebook activities. Result showed that there is an actor-observer differences in the way adolescents see themselves in the online world.
Keywords: social networking, online, internet, relational-self, social identity