Studying the identification process of generation Z in social MediaA case study of adolescent girls in Mashhad

This study aims to analyze adolescent’ social media presumption in order to figure out the role of social media in the process of adolescent’ identification with it and, also, in order to explain this process in the age of global network.
For this purpose, qualitative method and narrative-episodic interview technique have been used. 12 interviews were conducted with adolescent girls, who are social media users and students at selected schools of Mashhad, aged 15 to 18. The gathered data was processed with thematic analysis method.
The findings indicate a shift from “living with social media” to “living in social media”. Despite the high agency of online search, adolescent girls have “extensive and shallow identity exploration”. They also benefit from “the agency power in online identity execution” which has led to arbitrary formation of social media and the “self”. The agency power and the possibility of user’s control identity execution have caused “objective perspective on the social media user”. Unrestricted content and access lead to “self-centered and media-centered norms’ emergence”. “The planned or unwanted collision with online and offline fields” has eliminated the border between these fields. Therefore, the adolescent girls always experience “anxiety caused by unwanted visibility”.
Adolescent girls’ explanations about social media functions covers all identification process elements. But adolescent girls control or avoid any awkward or unfavorable situation due to social media capacities and agency power. Therefore, identification process shrinks to a lower order.