Caught in Self-manipulation on Social Media and How To Break Away

Advances in technology make humans seem to be inseparable from the use of the internet. The convenience that is most felt on the internet is that it is easy to receive or provide information and communicate. Online mass media is one of the containers that provide convenience in the field of information.

This media is able to provide information quickly and can be accepted by the wider community. Online mass media has various types, lately what has become a trend among the public is social media or often also referred to as social media. 

Social media users can easily share both individual and general information. Most social media users will share their life moments on social media, such as while on vacation, eating, shopping, and much more. 

Without realizing it, humans are increasingly imitating uploads that they find interesting and sometimes forget what their real condition is. Therefore, this issue is interesting to be explored in more depth.

According to Shirky (2008), social media is a tool to increase the ability of users to share, collaborate with users and take collective action that is outside the institutional or organizational chain. 

Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Line, Youtube, TikTok, and so on are hobbies that are loved by young people or women. 

The development of social media as a new media, makes it easier for users to interact and present themselves either immediately or delayed and to a wide or limited audience. 

However, this freedom and convenience allow a person to manipulate himself through social media, one of which is by manipulating his data according to his wishes.

Nowadays, social media allows individuals to show different self-presentations. Self-presentation is an individual's effort to create a certain impression in front of others by arranging behavior so that other people interpret their identity according to what they want. 

In the identity production process, there are considerations made regarding the attributes of the symbol to be used and the message to be conveyed that is able to support the identity that is displayed as a whole. The production of this identity sometimes brings each individual into self-manipulation.

Examples of self-manipulation on social media are the names they use and the information or content they post (status, tweets, comments, photos, etc.).