The Role of Social Media Emotional Experiences in Identity Construction: Exploring Links between Micro-identity Processes

Identity can express itself at different time scales: while a whole year can have a major impact on commitment changes, daily identity relevant events pave the way for exploration of how the commitments fit to the self through real time emotional experiences. This study aimed at understanding how micro-identity processes were linked to each other and how daily social media emotional experiences could explain levels of micro-identity processes in two primary identity domains at emerging adulthood: the romantic relationships and the educational domains. Participants were emerging adult students aged from 18 to 24 (N = 35, 85.71% women). The study followed a fifteen-week protocol containing three measurement periods each consisting of seven daily measures. We observed a large heterogeneity in the relations between emotional experiences and micro-identity processes. Specifically, within-individual relations between emotional experiences and the identity exploration processes were mainly positive in the romantic relationships domain, while such a relation was found between the emotional experiences and the commitment process in the domain of education. Linear mixed models showed that different aspects of emotional experiences predicted higher levels of identity exploration in the romantic relationships domain only. Results of this study account for specific roles of social media emotional experiences in the romantic relationships domain and in the educational domain.