Socially me: my live in posts, tweets, and actuality : a life narrative thesis on identity, narrative, and how millennials come to understand their lives through social media

How social media impact lives professionally, personally, and theoretically has been an issue that fascinates academics and non-academics. Drawing on theoretical tenets from Erving Goffmans dramaturgy theory, as well as conventions of postmodernist narratives and digital literacy narratives, I present the case that the millennial generation came of age with the internet, and this life-long relationship impacts how this age group constructs narratives across social media platforms today. They engage in identity bending, that is, constructing online identities that differ from their offline ones. These online identities are also not the same across social media platforms. Using traditional approaches to autoethnography, as well as constructs of digital ethnography, I engage in life narrative research to study these issues through the span of my own life, and present an autobiographical case for how growing up with the internet and social media affect how I use them today.