Virtual Identity: Risk or Resource? A Study about Effects of UsingSocial Network and Multi-User Virtual Environment (Muve) onProcesses of Identity Construction Of Emerging Adults

Using internet to build own social-relational system is an increasingly widespread phenomenon. It revolves both very young people and emerging adults [2] for which the dimensions of identity exploration often seemed to constitute areas of uncertainty and risk [1]. The motivation factors to use a social network are related to self-presentation and socialization [13],[19]. On the other hand, it was demonstrated [8] that the use of virtual environment and/or social networks for continuous and sustained periods can have directly negative effects on self- definition processes [3], [4]. Therefore, the goal of this explorative contribution is to study the effects of using of virtual environment and/or social networks in terms of risks and resources on processes of identity construction of emerging adults. It was used a narrative format of survey (autobiographical narrative interview) [5] [6], considered one of the most suitable instruments to analyze the construction processes of narrative identity. Participants are 25 emerging adults (average age 23 years), balanced by gender. The texts produced were analyzed by lexical content analysis, which identifies semantic worlds of texts, through lexical cluster analysis [17].