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Learn it your way
A short class with Sarah and her students. The other ways are under More.
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What is the difference between an active and a passive digital footprint?
Active is what we choose to post, like photos and comments. Passive is data collected about us, like our location or search history.
Why does a footprint matter for identity?
Because people we never expected, like a future college, might read it and judge who we are.
Now, is an online persona the same as a lie?
Not exactly. It is a selected version of ourselves, like a performance on a front stage.
Good. The problem comes when the gap between the performance and real life grows too wide.
How would you announce that you made the school football team on a family group chat and in a public post?
To the family I'd write a full sentence, maybe with a photo. In public I'd keep it short, add a hashtag and sound more casual.
That's code-switching between registers. What happens when your aunt, your coach and your classmates all follow the same account?
It gets awkward, because one post has to suit everyone at once.
That is called context collapse. How do some people deal with it?
They keep separate accounts for close friends and for everyone else.
Exactly. Audience shapes language online, just as it does in any other text.
Here is a bio: '17, Chennai to Toronto, chai over coffee, future architect, she/her.' What identity does it build?
Someone young who has moved countries, is proud of her Indian roots and is ambitious.
Which phrase shows cultural pride most clearly?
'Chai over coffee', because it chooses an Indian habit even in Canada.
And how might algorithms change what she posts over time?
If posts about her architecture sketches get more likes, the algorithm shows them more, so she might post more of them.
So feedback and algorithms do not just show identity; they can slowly shape it.
Bios, posts and captions have a writer, purpose, audience and register, so they can be analysed like any text.
Active and passive traces form a lasting record that others read to judge identity.
Selective self-presentation creates a front-stage version of the self.
Users change register for each audience but struggle when one post reaches all of them.
Likes and ranking systems reward some content, shaping language, behaviour and self-image.
Active and passive footprint: A posted photo is part of the active footprint, while the location data recorded by the app is part of the passive footprint.
Code-switching: A student writes "Dear Ma'am, please find my assignment attached" to a teacher and "done w the assignment finally!!" to friends.
Bio analysis: "Chai over coffee" in an invented bio signals pride in an Indian habit, building a persona that is proud of its roots while living abroad.
Post it once, it's there to stay; choose your words for every day.
Arjun wrote a sarcastic joke for three close friends. Years later it appeared in a screenshot, read by strangers who had never heard his tone of voice. The words stayed the same, but the context collapsed, and so did their meaning.
F-P-C-A: Footprints, Personas, Code-switching, Algorithms, the four topics in order.
W.A.R.P. - Writer, Audience, Register, Purpose: four questions to ask of any online text.
Term
What is the difference between active and passive digital footprints?
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Term
What is selective self-presentation?
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Term
What is context collapse?
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How can algorithms affect identity?
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What is a filter bubble?
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The record of a person's online activity, both what they share (active) and data collected about them (passive).
The version of themselves that a person presents on a social media platform.
Choosing which parts of one's life, appearance and opinions to show others online.
Changing between languages, dialects or registers to suit different audiences or settings.
The level of formality and style of language chosen for a particular audience and purpose.
The situation in which one post reaches many different audiences at once, making it hard to choose a suitable register.
A set of rules a platform uses to choose and rank the content each user sees.
A situation in which a user mostly sees content that matches their existing views and interests.
This lesson explores the four topics of "Social Media and Identity": digital footprints, online personas versus real identity, code-switching and language variation online, and the effects of likes, comments and algorithms, treating every profile, post and caption as a text that builds an identity.
In Language and Literature, a social media profile is a text: written, edited and designed for an audience. Digital footprints, both the posts we share and the data collected about us, become a lasting record that others read to judge who we are. Online personas are curated through selective self-presentation, a kind of performance for an audience. Users code-switch between registers and languages for different platforms and audiences, and struggle when one post reaches everyone at once, a problem called context collapse. Likes, comments and algorithms reward some kinds of posts, shaping what people say, how they say it and how they feel about themselves. The lesson ends by analysing a short profile bio and caption as texts.
A social media profile is a text. Like any text, it has a writer, a purpose, an audience, a register and carefully chosen words and images. The four topics of this section show how identity is constructed, and sometimes distorted, through that text.
A digital footprint is the record of everything we do online. Its active part is what we choose to share: posts, comments, photos and likes. Its passive part is data collected about us, often without our noticing, such as location, search history and browsing activity. Once something is posted, it can be screenshotted, reposted or archived, so we lose control over who reads it and when. Future readers, such as universities or employers, may judge our identity from a footprint we created years earlier for a very different audience.
An online persona is the version of ourselves we present on a platform. Most people practise selective self-presentation: they choose flattering photos, share highlights rather than ordinary days, and edit their words carefully. The sociologist Erving Goffman described everyday life as a kind of performance, with a "front stage" where we present ourselves to others and a "backstage" where we relax; social media turns much of life into a front stage. A persona is not simply fake: it may be a hopeful or experimental version of who we are. Problems arise when the gap between persona and reality grows, or when people compare their ordinary lives with others' edited highlights.
Code-switching means changing between languages, dialects or registers to suit an audience. Online, people write formally on a school portal, casually in a group chat and in yet another style in a public post, and many multilingual users mix languages, such as Hindi and English, in a single message. Each platform also has its own norms, such as hashtags, short captions or video with on-screen text. Difficulty comes with context collapse: when one post reaches family, friends, teachers and strangers at the same time, it is hard to choose a single register that suits them all. Some users respond by keeping separate accounts for different audiences.
Likes, comments and shares act as public feedback. They can encourage creativity and connection, but they can also push users to post whatever gains approval and tie self-esteem to numbers. Algorithms, the rules platforms use to choose and rank what each user sees, usually favour content that gets engagement. This can create filter bubbles or echo chambers, in which people mostly see views like their own, and it shapes language itself: creators choose words, hashtags and formats they expect the algorithm to reward, and some users even invent coded spellings to avoid automatic moderation, a practice sometimes called "algospeak".
Consider this invented profile bio: "17 | Chennai to Toronto | chai over coffee | future architect | she/her".
Now an invented caption: "Not me pretending I understood the chemistry test #survivingyear10". The informal register and the meme-like phrase "Not me..." create a relatable, self-mocking persona, while the hashtag places the writer in a community of students with the same experience. Analysing such texts uses the same skills as analysing a poem or a speech: purpose, audience, register, word choice and effect.