A Typology of Representation of Lifestyle of Iranian Youth in the Facebook

Social networks are new media allowing people to produce their own massages and share different aspects of their lives and lifestyles with others through demonstrating pictures and texts. The objective of this research is to offer a typology of representation of lifestyle by Iranian youth in their Facebook pages.
To achieve this objective, the Facebook homepages of 44 young people aging 15-35 were analyzed through qualitative content analysis using targeted sampling method.
The findings of the research indicate that people exhibit their lifestyles in the Facebook mostly through five components: dressing and makeup styles, leisure hours, interpersonal relations, nutrition style and decoration of their homes. Based on the interest of people in representing each of the mentioned components, three types of lifestyle representation in the Facebook were identified and classified: self-exhibitionists, leisure hours-exhibitionists and relationship-exhibitionists. It was found that self-exhibitionists were further classified into three categories: body-exhibitionists, garment-exhibitionists, and specialization-exhibitionists. The leisure hour-exhibitionists are interested in exhibiting a happy and leisure-based lifestyle. The relationship-exhibitionists represent their lifestyles on the side of others and among others.