Shape Shifting Across Social Media

Behaviour changes according to the situation and context each person finds themselves in. The context and structure of the social network shapes and dictates their behaviour (e.g., a teacher will behave differently outside the classroom). These behavioural changes are known as switching ‘social roles’.
We can see changes in role both on and offline. From understanding behaviour across contexts (e.g., home vs work or friends vs colleagues), we can better understand the individual. As the social network offline dictates behaviour; this is mimicked online by the human-computer interaction (HCI) perspective of systems shaping behaviour. Therefore, the individual conforms to a set of social norms online (as well as offline), which is a key concept to this study.