96

For Internet users, the way social networking sites are supporting identity-building may be seen as ambivalent. In many respects, they tend to suggest a similarity with the self-realization techniques that have developed in western societies since antiquity, a similarity that clearly accounts for the enthusiasm with which social networking sites have been adopted. However, the networking platforms have a number of characteristics that distance them from the usual aims of self-realization techniques, which are designed to develop self-reflection and self-care. They are tools for self-expression rather than techniques for self-realization, and to understand them, we need to step outside the egocentric view to engage with the essentially co-constructed dimension of our identity.