4.2. Social identity
Participants' reports regarding social identity and group membership processes indicate that MySpacemay facilitate integration,
rather than fragmentation, of identity development. In the offline world, individuals are able to present certain aspects of the self
differently to different groups, varying their social identities for different groups (Roccas & Brewer, 2002). For instance, young adults
might brag to their friends about how much alcohol they drank last night, but tell their families about how much they studied last
night. But, as boyd (2008) notes, with one heterogeneous public audience on social networking sites, aspects of the self cannot be
presented differently to different groups. Therefore, MySpace actually may introduce pressure for an integration of selfpresentations
into one that is appropriate to everyone, fromyour best friend who shares your value system to a distant acquaintance
who may not.