Guided Response: Respond in a substantive way to at least two of your peers. Select responses that are dissimilar to yours. Reflect on your classmates’ explanation of a digital self, and compare that to your own description, noting where you agree and disagree. Provide a rationale for why your classmates might have arrived at their conclusions based on the theories they described.

Ashley’s Post:

Two Theories of Self

Two theories

of self that resonate with me are self-actualization and possible self.  Self-actualization exemplify an individual’s goal oriented behavior.  Meaning that the person behavior is directed towards achieving his or her potential.  This tends to happen when the individual have full awareness of themselves.  When a person have something to work towards, it gives them a sense of self-worth. 

The possible self explains or defines or the perfect scenarios of who we could be, become, as well as the achievements we can accomplish within our life span.  “Possible selves are somewhat limitless, in the sense that they can be anything that you imagine yourself to be” (Lecci, 2015, ch. 9.1).  The only limitation that we may encounter is not setting our goals high enough or do not apply ourselves enough to reach the goal.

Explain

why you relate to these theories.

Based on the situation or circumstances, goals can be challenging and difficult to obtain.  However, when the goal are met, I feel like my potential is unlimited.  When contemplating about my possible self, it can be a positive or negative aspect of my personality based on self-achievements.  For example, I initiated my BA degree in 2008.  Due to tdys, deployments, over task saturated, and other responsibilities I had to keep putting my education on hold.  By being extremely goal-oriented, I always have to finish what I start which leads me to completing my degree in June 2020.

Digital Age

Toddlers, adolescents, and teenagers that are advancing in this day and age (digital age) spends more time online than any other aspects of life.  The millennium generation teachers, babysitters and sometime parental figures become their phone, television, social media, and gaming systems.  “Children spend more time with media than they do with parents, physical activity, homework, and chores combined” (Dodge, Barab, Stuckey, Warren, Heiselt, & Stein, 2008).

Explain

According to Henry Jenkins, the society is changing due to technology and industrial advances, culture and social climates changing to media culture (Dodge, Barab, Stuckey, Warren, Heiselt, & Stein, 2008).  Majority of the aspects of life revolves around technology now.  Most people possesses a cellular device, computer, and gaming system.  When we inquire about something, the answers is currently at our fingertips.  For example, we now have online schooling and my daughter schoolwork is being completed on a Mac Book.  Technology has a tremendous impact on our day lives.

References

Dodge, T., Barab, S., Stuckey, B., Warren, S., Heiselt, C., & Stein, R. (2008).

Children’s sense of self: Learning and meaning in the digital age

. Journal of Interactive Learning Research, 19(2), 225-249. Retrieved from

http://www.aace.org/pubs/jilr (Links to an external site.)

Lecci, L. B. (2015).

Personality

. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu

Samantha’s Post:

Two theories

Possible Selves theory: Possible selves is a theory when individuals view a specific, usually better version of themselves that they have not necessarily become yet, however desire to become or view another version of themselves from the past which they may not desire to be anymore (Lecci, 2015). This can be broken down into two terms; positive possible selves which individuals wish to become, and negative possible selves which one would like to avoid becoming (Lecci, 2015). Markus and Nurius are the two primary founders of this theory through research and they believe that a persons possible self relates to their culture, societal norms, and personal life situations such as relationships, and roles in life (Lecci, 2015).

I relate to this theory because I find that the way we view ourselves in past, present and future can impact how we change, grow and succeed, or not, in life. For example, if we view out past selves as being a failure in a specific subject, and we do not plan on doing anything to change that, when we view our future self it may appear to also be a failure in that subject, which can cause the present self to not try as hard as their is a victim mindset present. This idea is also backed by studies that show students who made unsuccessful academic message to their possible future selves had much lower outcomes and chances of obtaining good grades in the future as they developed a learned helplessness (Hernandez, Melugin & Barnett, 2019). If we view our future selves as being successful and thriving in specific areas, one can work towards that goal which than raises their chances of becoming the successful thriving future self that they imagine.

The Private & Public Self: This theory believes that where individuals focus their attention to the most (private vs. public consciousness) is where an individual works harder to maintain and this reflects in their personalities and actions. Our textbook discusses that private self-dominant is defined as people who tend to be more self-aware and participate in self-focused goals and attention while those who are public self-dominant are less focused on internal goals and more focused on social goals (Lecci, 2015).

I relate to this theory as it seems rather apparent individuals who prefer attention from others, or those who are extroverted, do things to obtain more social connections and advances, while those who are more self driven, or introverted, prefer to do things that help benefit themselves vs. their relationships with others, therefore an individuals characteristics or behaviors are a direct reflection of their private or public selves.

As someone that does not participate in social media, I find myself viewing it from a distant perspective vs. and inside one. With the constant comparing individuals face, specifically adolescence who are trying to figure out who they are, social media can be greatly harmful to ones self view, and self esteem. If one is highly focused on their public-self view, and they do not fit what they deem “suitable” based on social medias societal norms, or do not obtain as many likes or comments as they think they should, this can cause a large impact on their self esteem as they find they are not living up to their expected standards. This can also affect ones possible-self view, as they may find their past self wasn’t good enough and thier present self isn’t good enough, therefor their future self will not be good enough as well. This I am assuming can cause individuals, specifically adolescence to feel displace, unimportant and lost in unrealistic social media standards.

I think social media makes a large impact on how perceptions of selves are changing as social media typically only shows the “good” moments of ones life, their good pictures when they are dressed and done up, the happy moments and ones successes vs. failures. This can cause a very confusing image for those that do not understand social media is a place where most only discuss the better parts of their lives, and can leave individuals comparing their struggles with others illusion of happiness as its not a clear reflection of how one really is, how their life really is, or what struggles they encounter behind the happy photos that are posted. Instead of individuals working on being better happier versions of themselves, they could focus on comparing with others and copying their lives vs. working on their own.

References

Hernandez, J., Melugin, P. R., & Barnett, M. D. (2019). Influence of Future Possible Selves on Outcome Expectancies, Intended Behavior, and Academic Performance. Psychological Reports, 122(6), 2320.

Lecci, L. B. (2015). Personality. Retrieved from

https://content.ashford.edu (Links to an external site.)