Abstract:

Period of emerging adulthood is a time of intense search for identity by young people who are building their concept of themselves mainly through three ways: a philosophical reflection, by shaping new social relations, and by professional activity (Arnett, 2000). The identity-building process can take different forms, which Berzonsky calls styles. These are the methods by which people construct and utilize their knowledge of decision making in everyday life (Berzonsky, Ferrari, 1996). The following are three styles of identity building: informative, normative and diffusion-avoidance. Information-style persons make independent efforts to search, process and evaluate information related to "I". People with a normative style more automatically internalize their knowledge and adjust to the expectations of significant individuals, authorities. The diffusion-avoidance style consists in shifting and avoiding as far as possible the conflicts and situations that force decisions (Berzonsky, 1989). In today's world thanks to the use of social media, young people have almost unlimited opportunity to interact with a variety of views and positions that are both similar and contradictory to their own. This is an opportunity to develop reflection on the concept of self and the way of life. In our research we looked at the relationship between the frequency and the ways of using social media and the styles of self-identity development by young adults. For this purpose, 120 students aged 20-25 were examined using two methods: the Gurba & Gurba Questionnaire and Identity Style Inventory (ISI) (M. Berzonsky). Interestingly, the correlations between self-identity styles and social media and games use were approved, showing that informative and normative styles correlate with active profile of social media users and diffusion-avoidance style correlate with passive style of social media users on one hand and with intensive use of internet games.

Keywords:

Identity style, social media, internet games.