Paper short abstract:

Personal memories are a crucial part of an individual's sense of identity and belonging. This paper explores the ways in which young people use digital media for their memory-making practices and digital media's role in performing their identities.

Paper long abstract:

Personal memories play an important role in the formation and understanding of a person's identity (Kontopodis and Matera 2010). Remembering or forgetting the past are processes, which are always closely interlinked with making sense of the present and envisioning the future (McDonald 2013). Thus, sharing memories with digital media is a powerful way to share ideas of who we were, who (we think) we are and who we want to be, with a potentially large audience. Particularly for young people, the increased access to digital media has made the recording, archiving and instant communication of happenings an integral part of their everyday activities (van Dijk 2007).

While the current focus of research often lies on technology companies and people's usage of specific social media platforms, this paper argues that everyday practices of creating narratives about the self are at least as important to understand the impact of digital media on cultural practices (Pink et.al. 2018). Based on a digital storytelling workshop conducted in an East London school, with students aged between 13 -14 years, this paper emphasises the importance of practices surrounding young people's online performances of memory and identity. It further demonstrates that far from being naïve, young participants carefully select what they share, exercise control over their online performances and are aware that being seen online in 'the wrong way' could have negative consequences for their future selves.