The Digital Self and Real Self Among Social Media Users

Abstract

The use of online social networks has increased in recent years, in addition to other electronic media that individuals mainly use to provide some information about themselves and communicate with others. The current study aimed to identify the level of the digital self and the real self among social media users. The study targeted individuals aged between 19-27 years old. The study data was collected using the Real Self Scale (prepared by the researchers) and the digital self scale (prepared by Mohammed,2019). The results showed that social media users have a high level of digital and real self, and there were no significant differences according to gender in the digital self, while were significant differences in the real self towards males. The study results also showed differences between the mean scores of the younger age group (23-26 years old) and the older age group (27 and above) on the real self scale towards the older age group, while the differences on the digital self scale were towards the younger age group (23-26 years old).