Erving Goffman's Presentation Of Self In Everyday Life

Social media is a crucial part of individual’s lives and shows no signs of dissipating. We are constantly checking our phones for the latest information and even if an individual chooses not to be active on social media, someone else is most likely incorporating them in tagged photos. Research by Smith 2015, shows that over 64% of Americans own a smartphone with shows the potential for the formation and management of impressions online to increase. Facebook, which is one of the most commonly used social networking sites (SNS), many individuals are skeptical of the individuals that do not have a Facebook account. The social networking site has been on the rise, which leads to the opportunity to explore what content people are choosing to share

In Erving Goffman’s, Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (1959), he starts with the famous quote by Shakespeare saying, “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women are merely players. They have their exits and their entrances: and one man in his time plays many parts.” This quote gives a simplified example of what the theory is. The theory analyzes how individuals have different sides for the multiple platforms they align themselves with. When an individual places himself among others, he tends to act differently than if he were alone (Goffman, 1959). Humans are concerned with how we are viewed and how our status is perceived. Goffman (1959) says that there are two different ways that our expressiveness is shared, the expression he gives and the expression that he “gives off”. The verbal signs that an individual gives is the interaction that he knows will form an attachment with the receiver of the message. The expression that he gives of is when he creates a particular type of character for the specific reaction he wants from his audience (Goffman, 1959). Goffman explains that humans have the tendency to alter their public selves to avoid embarrassment or being ostracized. He also found that there is no exact number of times this can happen, and that individuals will take whatever corrective measures to create the identity they want to portray for a particular