Our lives look a lot more interesting when they’re filtered through the sexy Facebook interface. We star in our own movies, we photograph ourselves incessantly, we click the mouse and a machine confirms our sense of mastery.
The most effective young Facebook users, however -- the ones who will probably be winners if Facebook turns out to be a model of the future they will inhabit as adults -- are the ones who create successful online fictions about themselves.
There's this large trend - I think the next trend in the Web, sort of Web 2.0 - which is to have users really express, offer, and market their own content, their own persona, their identity.
I watch people, friends of mine, and see how they portray themselves online and I find interesting that it's kind of a hyper-real version of yourself, how you'd like to be seen, in a way.
The social web can't exist until you are your real self online. I have to be me. You have to be you. Once we are online as ourselves, connected to each other and our other friends, then you can have the evolution of what becomes the social web.
There's this weird thing that happens when you contribute something to a static profile. You have to worry about how this new content fits in with your online persona that's supposed to be you. It's uncomfortable and unfortunate.
I tweet myself and do all the Facebook updates. It started off with me wondering whether I was showing off and I was very careful about what I wrote.
The Internet gave a place like, 'Oh, I'll do whatever I want now. Nobody's going to see it anyways.' Oddly enough, people started watching and I got more confident, comfortable with it.
[In a blogosphere] everybody has an opinion now, but I don't really freaking care about - all opinions ain't created equal, because everybody can go out there and express themselves and hide behind some character we don't know who you really are, a bunch of cowards.
We who curate our Twitter feeds and Facebook walls understand that at least part of what we're doing publicly, 'like'-ing what we like, is trying to separate ourselves from the herd.
It is human nature to look away from illness. We don't enjoy a reminder of our own fragile mortality. That's why writing on the Internet has become a lifesaver for me. My ability to think and write have not been affected. And on the Web, my real voice finds expression.
The way people express themselves online, that's also how they express themselves in the real world.
I am actually turned off when I look at an account and don’t see any selfies, because I want to know whom I’m dealing with. In our age of social networking, the selfie is the new way to look someone right in the eye and say, 'Hello, this is me.'
I know having a social media profile removed is a 21st century privileged problem - but it is the way a lot of us live. These profiles mimic our physical selves and a lot of the time are even more important. They are ways to connect with an audience, to start discussion, and to create change.
The internet has allowed me to just be authentically myself, as opposed to having to perpetuate a certain image, and so I'm lucky that I don't have to fit into a certain box.
I can'’t live without posting pictures.
