Construcción de la identidad a través de las redes sociales online: Una mirada desde el construccionismo social

During the last years, online social networks (OSN, RSO in Spanish) have generated a great deal of interest in the scientific community and are currently studied from different research viewpoints. One of these realms of study has been the way how OSN users (especially the younger ones) present themselves in them and to which degree this presentation contributes to the construction of possible selves that can project features of an idealized self. The aim of this article is to analyze these empirical studies taking Kenneth Gergen's social constructionism as a reference in order to offer a better understanding of this phenomenon. Contributions of other theories in Social Psychology are also integrated. The authors conclude that the OSN represent one more environment where young people can project and experiment with different selves, developing from a strategic manipulation - the first stage described by Gergen - to a relational self. The variations described in the different studies with respect to the users' identity and social representation are seen as a natural process, as presenting different selves does not imply a threat to the process of identity construction.